Tag Archives: puerto escondido

Toto, We’re Not in Kentucky Anymore

31 Jan

You know you’re not in Kentucky anymore when you wake up to find your coffeemaker colonized by some tiny species of ant. It had been ant-free the night before, and, as usual, I’d put in the water and coffee so I could press the button and go back to bed while my magical elixir brewed itself (oh happy day, this electricity thing!). Alas, dead ants were swimming in my coffee. Live ants were swarming the machine. Ants were struggling to survive in the water part in the back. It was just another day in Puerto Escondido. These things just didn’t happen to me in Louisville, Kentucky.

Lots of other havoc and mini-disasters did happen in Kentucky, though (like when I moved into an apartment with fleas. Bleck!) There’s no perfect place, just like there’s no perfect relationship, no perfect person. Here, I don’t worry about tornadoes every time it storms (and it rarely even storms), which is a great relief. There are no watches and warnings to keep updated on, no tornado sirens to fuel a panic attack. Instead, however, I keep abreast of the hurricane forecast from May to November (the rainy season). Earthquakes are also more frequent here than in my hometown, and don’t even talk to me about the possibility of tsunamis (terrifying!).

Mostly I love the two-season system (rainy and dry), although I miss the leaves changing in the fall. I miss the excitement of taking the plastic off of my windows in the spring (cheap insulation), but you don’t have to get excited about a warmish day when you haven’t been bummed out and trapped inside for 3 or 4 months.

What’s funny, though, is how some countries’ seasonal status quo becomes the dominant, normalized thing worldwide, even when it’s not the slightest bit relevant. Take snow on Christmas as an example. Pretty much every single image about Christmas shows snow or snowflakes or Santa in his winter outfit or whatever. Yet snow is only even possible in half of the world, since the other half is in the hemisphere where it’s summer in December. Then there are all the other places without those kinds of seasons- like here. Whenever things like spring come up in my classroom activities I have to not only translate it but also describe what it actually means, because the four seasons mean diddly squat to my students. Needless to say, it’s never going to snow here for Christmas. There are no chimneys, either, so I guess Santa just has to break in. Perhaps that’s why so few people get excited about Christmas around here.

It got me to thinking about all the things that are and will be so different for my kids growing up here, different from how things were for me in Kentucky. Not just seasonal things, but cultural and political things, like the lack of emergency vehicles. The only time we hear sirens is when some religious pilgrim group has taken charge of an ambulance and is using it to parade through the town.

I knew my kids were living a totally different reality when I rode a wild-ish ride at a fair with a 7 year old. Not only are there no official rules about how tall you have to be to ride rides, there is essentially no regard for safety (which, you know, tends to be more fun, until someone gets seriously injured). We were on this ride pictured below and the apparently teenaged boys controlling the ride are jumping up onto the ride and manually spinning us around so we go faster. It was fantastically fun, and it would never, ever, ever happen in Louisville, Kentucky. If it did there’d be a big public outcry and possibly lawsuits and everything would get shut down after the first time it happened.

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I rode this ride with a 7 year old who was not at all impressed.

Or there’s the way people in Kentucky assume that we must live out in the country (we don’t!). Perhaps it’s because all the animals in our “farm animals” book roam around our neighborhood (except pigs). Really, different neighbors boast sheep, goats, tons of chickens, and now a couple cows, in addition to the mean old dogs. And yet we live right behind the biggest public university in town, inside what’s more or less a small city.

Of course, it doesn’t help convince people we live in a city when I tell them about the lack of sidewalks, and the dirt road we live on. And yes, I hate that Lucia can’t just go outside to the sidewalk to practice on her roller skates or her bike. I hate that using a stroller is an extreme sport. It’s not like that in all neighborhoods in Puerto; lots of areas have at least paved roads if not sidewalks, but it is part of our family’s reality.

Then there’s much more stuff that’s neither good nor bad, just different from how I grew up. Like not leaving the house without mosquito repellant, but shoes being optional. Yes, I know, there’s that image of us Kentucky folks with no shoes, and indeed, I spent summers running around barefoot sometimes. But you can’t go inside ANYWHERE without shoes in Louisville. Here, it’s no problem if your flip flop blows out or your heel comes unglued from the heat or you just didn’t feel like fighting with the kid to get their shoes on. You can go to restaurants, supermarkets, just about any damn where without shoes and nobody cares.

Here, we check our shoes for scorpions before we put them on. We take showers with cold water (so much better for your skin!). Fresh coconut is a routine part of our diet. There’s no fast food but there are lots of street vendors with bicycle carts to sell you all kinds of junk food. There are so many differences that seem so normal to me now, three and a half years since our move. I’m looking forward to comparing notes with my kids when they’re older- their childhood versus mine. Assuming, that is, that we don’t get blown away by any hurricanes or devoured by ants before then!

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Ice cream carts like these even make it to the most remote neighborhoods, to the beach, wherever! All kinds of junk food vendors LOVE to post up outside of schools, of course.

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These kinds of carts are the common (and cool, in my humble opinion). 

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Homemade street food can include healthy options like fruit, jicama, popcorn, or super fried (and yummy) crap like chicharrines or pork rinds

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Duct Tape & Therapy Techniques To the Rescue

10 Jan

It was all fun and games until water burst forth from the wall. Our household improvements and  reorganizing was going swimmingly, brilliantly even, in the few days since we’d been back from Juquila on my winter vacation. I’d gone through three years worth of kid clothes and organized the sales/giveaway clothes, plus reorganized the kid chest of drawers. I did laundry and put away all the clean clothes. I reorganized all the toys. I finished cleaning out my closet (I’d mostly gotten it done over a 3 day weekend but there was one little section left). Conan put up new shelves in the kid room and the kitchen. He did a ton of cleaning. We bought thrilling new gadgets, such as a napkin holder. It was feeling like a sensational vacation.

 

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Behold! A napkin holder! On our new kitchen table!!!!! We’ve moved so far beyond our piece of plywood on saw horses….

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My new spice rack!

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Okay, so I haven’t gotten to the kid books yet. But the kid toys are organized by type of toy, whether you can tell by the picture or not. It’s a miracle!

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New kitchen shelves and a new faucet to replace the leaky one!

We were a cheery and energetic bunch. It really was how I wanted to spend my vacation- at least part of it. For one thing, it felt like claiming my space, making this house even more into a home. Conan and I desperately needed the sanity from more organization. The constant clutter from not having a place for everything was driving us crazy, even though we’re not exactly super organized types.

 

Khalil was the other motivating factor. He is suddenly not a little baby- he’s a giant and active baby who can’t be contained to a small space in the living room. It was totally unsafe for him anywhere else in the house, which was frustrating for everyone. So once I reorganized and he was suddenly able to go into the kid room and play with all the big toys, it changed his whole outlook. He was ecstatic, and we were pleased as punch to watch him crawl and semi-walk around and play like the 10 month old he is. It’s so satisfying to see the toys getting used at age-appropriate times. For example, Khalil can play with all the shape shifter things and the blocks because they’re all accessible to him now. Lucia can play with her puzzles because they’re properly stored where she has to be supervised to play them so we don’t lose half the pieces. It’s earth-shatteringly wonderful, even if it may not sound like it to you (in which case you must not be the parent of small children- you don’t have an existence based around total family chaos!).

 

It was my second to last night of vacation, and most of our projects were completed when Conan started drilling to put up the last new kitchen shelf. He dropped the f-bomb, which he doesn’t do nearly as often or as easily as I do. I rushed over to see a little fountain raining down out of the wall. Yikes. “How can I help?” I asked, calm because there’s always something to do in the midst of an emergency. “Hold here,” he said, and I put my fingers over the hole in the wall (only partially effective) while Conan turned off the water.

 

Once the flooding of our house was safely averted, the black rain cloud of doom came out. I asked Conan what we’d need to do to fix it. “Bust open the concrete wall and change the pipe,” he said. Immediately, tears welled up in my eyes. My doom cloud of worst-case-scenario hovered over me. Panic squeezed my chest. I envisioned the last little bit of my Christmas bonus money, the money we were using on home repairs and some upcoming needed dentistry, going to this disaster instead. I imagined that it would send us into more debt. I lamented that all of this fabulous, life-improving repair and organization we’d done was all for naught, that this instant of miscalculated drilling had ruined everything. Not that I blamed Conan; it was the fault of bad luck, miserly fate, etc. Fault or no, though, it felt like the end of the freaking world.

 

Because I’ve now had many years of practice with these end-of-the-world moments, and thus far the world has yet to come to an end, I managed to refrain from real crying. Bless my little heart, I was even able to tell myself that yes, it felt like the worst thing ever, but it really wasn’t. It wasn’t even the worst thing this month! Plus it wasn’t even certain that all the horrible consequences that I could imagine would come to fruition from this. Thank you very much, these three decades of having a therapist for a mother is totally paying off. I finally took advantage and continued breathing. The world continued to revolve on its axis, and continues to this very day, believe it or not.

 

But welcome to Oaxaca, where two different plumbers have stood us up for days on end (and those are the recommended plumbers!). Despite this, thanks to Conan’s craftiness, we’ve had water this whole time. Even that first night, we just let the water spray out into Khalil’s plastic bathtub so we could take showers quickly (always a necessity in my tropical paradise) and then Conan turned the water off again. The next day, Conan knocked out part of the wall. But it wasn’t as much of the wall as I had imagined. Then he rigged up a fix for the pipe until a plumber deigns to visit us. And it’s the dry season, so we’ve got some time before we need to fix our wall. It definitely doesn’t negate the wonders of our other home improvements and the joy that they continue to bring to our whole family.

 

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The original quick fix for drilling into the pipe. Crafty and stylish.

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Getting even craftier as the days go by without a reliable plumber. Welcome to Oaxaca!

 

The duct tape that Conan used to fix the pipe gets the gold star award for most useful thing on the planet, by the way (brought down from Kentucky by my mom- way to go, Mama! Everyone here is jealous of my duct tape). It has not only saved the day in our renovations, but it is also my go-to fix for nearly everything. I’ve used it to cover holes in our window screens, like the hole some stray cat made trying to get at an empty can of tuna. I use it to make these cheap cloth boxes more durable and less likely to be eaten by moths and ants. I use it to put Lucia’s name on her lunchbox and other school stuff. I use it to hold my cell phone together- my oft-dropped, two-year-old, cell phone, the one I used as a flashlight at night for the year and a half we were without electricity. Now when I drop it or a child throws it to the ground, the battery doesn’t come out. And it looks cool (according to me)! We all knew duct tape was useful, but this tape with multicolored designs on it is the bee’s knees, for sure. And now we are using it to tape up the hole in our piping. It’s the most stylish house-flood-prevention ever!

 

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My too-cool-for-school cloth boxes, remade with cardboard and rockin duct tape

Thus, I’m continuing to bask in the glory of an organized and clean house. I feel all smug and satisfied every time I walk in the door, like a cat that’s just presented you with the innards of his recent kill. When I told my students that I spent 5 days of vacation binge cleaning my house and that it was fantastic, they all just kind of looked at me in disbelief. Indeed, 20 year old me would never have believed it possible, either.

 

I’m exceedingly proud of Conan and myself for getting all this done with two mini-hurricane children under foot. But I’m also still patting myself on the back about not having a major breakdown over this plumbing disaster. It was like my little rational mind made a nice cup of chamomile tea for my little emotional mind in the midst of disappointment and panic, and it was a lovely little tear-free moment for everyone. I wouldn’t exactly call it wisdom, but it’s close enough for me. So thanks again, Mama, for all these years of free therapy, and the duct tape to boot.

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My First Quince Años

13 Dec

I had always thought I might barf from disgust if I went to a quince años, but this one was unavoidable. A quince años is a birthday party for a fifteen year old girl, and it’s a really, really huge deal. It’s sort of like an old fashioned “coming out” party- you know, coming out into society, being presented to the world as marriage material- mixed with being princess for a day, mixed with enough ceremony to be its own pagan ritual almost. It’s long, it’s intense, and parts of it are precisely the melodramatic patriarchal moments I envisioned. But I not only refrained from throwing up, parts of it also made me tear up (What can I say? I’m sensitive. Don’t take me to the movies.)

On one hand, I emphatically and voraciously love the idea of celebrating a girl’s coming into womanhood, and a boy’s coming into manhood, for that matter. It’s a crucial, trying, and beautiful part of our lives and we need family and the rest of our close community to stand by us, to teach us, to bring us into the fold. It’s something that’s seriously lacking about US culture (and many other cultures these days). So I love this idea of officially saying goodbye to childhood and it being this giant celebration.

On the other hand, I hate the idea of presenting a girl as marriage material, as if she were a thing being put on offer. Not that it’s exactly saying, “cool, go get married tomorrow,” and definitely not, “you’re ready for sex now” (this is a Catholic country, after all). But that is where it comes from.

According to Wikipedia (not the best source in the world, but I was curious what the interwebs had to say about it), “Quinceañeras originated from Aztec culture around 500 BC. At age fifteen boys became warriors and girls were viewed as mothers of future warriors, marking the age in which a girl became a woman.” While we don’t have Aztec warriors running around, it’s not at all uncommon for teenage girls to become mothers, or to “get married” in the unofficial way of going to live with their boyfriend. Here, if you run off to live at your boyfriends house (called robbing you, which also makes me want to vomit), you’re as good as married as far as society sees it. I certainly don’t think it’s morally wrong or any of that crap. The “problem” of teen pregnancy, for me, is not that you’re a teen who’s sexually active, or even that you’re not “grown up enough” to be a mother (who is?). For me the only problem is that it’s likely to drastically limit your options and your independence and mobility in life, and you are potentially more likely to get trapped in an abusive or otherwise awful relationship.  Becoming a mom in your 20s or 30s has a similar effect, you’ve just had a little more time to maybe get your act (and finances) together. But enough of that diatribe.

Wikipedia goes on to say that with the changes over time, the quinceañera is now a party for girls who “are honored for having maintained their virginity up to this point in their lives.” Ick. It’s 2015 and we’re still all about girls’ virginity? Enough said- you can see why I was hesitant about this whole quinceaños thing.

Down here, I think it’s also acknowledged that it’s the biggest celebration for them that they’ll ever get in their lives. Girls dream about it the way that some girls dream about their weddings. In a way, it’s cooler than a wedding, because it’s just about you. You’re not waiting around for Prince Charming or Mr. Perfect or whomever for your big day. Lots of girls know they might not get a big wedding (or any wedding at all, since when you move in with someone people say that you’re married), so if your family has enough money to give you a quince años party, this is as good as it gets.

Which brings me to my other drama with it: Part of me hates the idea that this is your crowing moment in life. I mean, if somebody told me that life at 15 was as good as it was going to get, I would have been fairly likely to go ahead and slit my wrists. Thank goodness, I wasn’t buying that bill of goods, and my life is leaps and bounds more enjoyable now than when I was 15.

Regardless, this type of celebration is definitely not anything anyone could have talked me into at 15. No, siree. I would have preferred more of a walking-over-hot-coals / vision-quest (preferably with drugs) / let’s-just-sit-around-and-drink-wine-with-my-womenfolk (and plot to change the world while laughing hysterically) kind of coming of age when I was 15 years old. You couldn’t have paid me to act out my goodbye to dolls and get lifted into the air numerous times by 8 teenage boys.

Not everybody gets a quinceaños, even if they haven’t shacked up with someone by then. It’s too outrageously expensive for many folks. But let me tell you about how this one went before I get distracted with more social commentary.

First, everyone got fed: barbacoa, which is like slow-cooked meat in a sauce that’s nothing like barbeque. Some waiting around, and then the elaborate, hours-long ceremony begins. There’s a crowning ceremony that the grandmothers do where they put a tiara on her. There’s a lot of dancing with the special boys called chambelanes. I especially liked one dance where they each bow and give her a rose, she bows and graciously accepts before tossing it aside carelessly for another boys’ rose. There’s a changing of the shoes where her cousin takes off her Chuck Taylors and puts some high heels on her. (I also loved that she wore this crazy princess dress with some Converse for most of the night.) There’s a weird doll dance where they give her her last doll. There was a thing with her dancing in front of a mirror. There were fireworks and confetti galore. A waltz with different family members, similar to the wedding waltz. I loved that at the end, she came back in a mini-skirt and did some fun dancing with one of the boys. And I loved the cake at the end, because her mama makes the best cakes.

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a princess in all respects

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part of the doll ceremony

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ceremonial dance with her chambelanes, the boys who dance with her

 

And I really did almost cry a couple of times. It was sweet and touching to see this lovely girls’ parents publicly acknowledge that their baby isn’t a little girl anymore, even though she’ll always be their baby. The father of the non-bride shed a couple tears during his speech. The quinceañera balled on her mama’s shoulder during their dance. And in this case especially, I know just how much her fabulous mama worked to give this to her daughter. She stayed up all night making the fifteen cakes. She made ALL of the recuerdos by hand- fake flower arrangements made out of mostly recycled material, dolls with green dresses like the one her daughter was wearing, the dolls encased in glass (did I mention the parents are glass makers?). I can’t imagine all the lost sleep and the debt creation that went into this party.

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Handmade table decorations that people take home as souvenirs

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Fifteen cakes, made by her mama the night before (the best 3 leches cakes ever)

No matter what I would have wanted or not wanted,  I think it was worth it for everyone concerned. Even though the fifteen year old is still a fifteen year old, and had an angsty, pained, and/or self-conscious look on her face half the time- that’s par for the course when you’re 15, even when you’re getting something you desperately wanted. You guys know I’m already planning Lucia’s alternate version to welcome her to womanhood when the time comes. I’m crossing my fingers she won’t want princess dresses and dances with dolls, but no matter what I’ll shed the same bittersweet tears as these parents.

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Me and my future 15 year old, all dressed up

 

 

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Kentucky State Fair versus November Fiestas in Puerto

8 Nov

I started to feel sad about not being able to go to the jazz festival in neighboring Mazunte next weekend, but then I remembered I don’t even like jazz. I realized that really I just miss fairs and festivals. My heart aches with longing every year that I miss WorldFest, my city’s giant festival of cultures. And especially now that I have kids, I miss the Kentucky State Fair, with all its silly attractions.

The Kentucky State Fair is a serious family tradition with my mama. And it’s that way for a reason; it’s awesome. I mean, you can watch baby chicks hatch! Pet pot-bellied piglets! See border collie performances! Talk to the giant Freddy the Farmer puppet/statue/whatever you call him! See acrobats! Watch people dive into ridiculously small amounts of water! Eat gross fried food and corn on the cob! Ride a roller coaster and make out on the Ferris Wheel (okay, so it’s been a lot of years since I’ve done that, and this is not part of my mama’s tradition- but what’s wrong with including this on my list of things I miss?) Marvel over rows of livestock that secretly all look the same to you! Sample the fudge and buy roasted pecans! Hurry through the quilt exposition to humor interested family members! Dawdle in the photo expo because there are surprising amounts of moving images to see! Count the endless streams of mullets, all day and all night! Walk and point and ooh and aah from morning till after nightfall!

There’s a lot to miss, obviously. But all is not lost here in my tropical paradise. This year we are taking advantage of the Festival of November. Last year was the first year we lived here for the Festival, but I was too knee-deep in pregnancy and full-time-job exhaustion to attend much of anything, especially since so many things start in the late evening. But this year exhaustion be damned! Grumpy tired kids be damned! We’ll be arranging longer nap times and going out- some, anyway.

We went to the our first festival event last night. It was supposed to be a coffee/tostada/peanut exposition followed by a concert. I’m not sure who organized the expo but they forgot to include the coffee, tostadas and peanuts. Oops. And okay, so we left at 9ish when the concert was about to start because the baby was practically begging to be put to bed. But we had fun, dammit!

Really it was just the same sort of carnaval-esque business that always gets set up at city hall for events. But it doesn’t really get old, especially when you’re a three year old. Lucia was in hog heaven, between all the food and rides, and enjoying it all with my co-worker’s little boy who just turned five. Thanks to Darian, Lucia was suddenly fearless, even on the fast-moving little Ferris Wheel which she cried on when she’d rode it with Papi a few months ago. They “drove” a Batman car and a semi truck, and jumped around in that bouncy-house thing. We nixed the bumper cars, although I have every intention of returning sans children to drive them myself. There’s also a real adult ride among the maybe 12 total rides- a circular one where you stand up and it spins you around and tilts you up high. There are definite possibilities there for a grown up date night!

Lucia and her friend drive their first semi truck.

Lucia and her friend drive their first semi truck.

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Of course the other main attraction is the food galore (as I mentioned, though, no promised peanuts, coffee, or tostadas.) There’s all the typical street food for Oaxaca: tacos first and foremost- a soft tortilla filled with your choice of beef, chorizo, tripa, pork al pastor, you know, the usual. Don’t forget the classic requisite Oaxaca food, the tlayuda. Think of it like a giant (whole-meal-sized) semi-hard taco with black beans, Oaxaca cheese called quesillo, shredded cabbage. a smearing of some pork fat product similar to lard, salsa, and an optional meat. There are other classics from the Oaxaca region, and then there are things that almost make it look like home. There’s pizza and cotton candy, for example. There’s corn on the cob, although here it’s served with mayonnaise, queso fresco (texture like crumbled parmesan but not as distinctive in flavor), lime and chile powder. There’s ice cream, although nieves are really more like snow cones served in an ice cream cone. There are churros and their fried bread cousins, donuts- called donas, sorta like chocolate milk is called chocomil, last syllable pronounced meal more than mil from milk). I have to say, too, that the donuts in Oaxaca are actually way yummier than donuts in the US (sorry, guys, but it’s true- they took your food and greatly improved it). No one could go hungry at any event like this, that’s for sure.

half of a tlayuda

For a space that’s perhaps not-quite-a-city-block long, there’s a lot going on! Besides the rides, the food, and the stage set up for the concert (with like 2 rows of bleachers), there are also some carnival-style games, like that one where you fish for some plastic thing and win a prize. It’s not bad for our quiet little coastal town. Besides, who needs the State Fair when I already live in a neighborhood with goats, sheep, cows, chickens, and turkeys running around every day of the week. (And we’re not even in a rural area!) Take that, Kentucky festivals! We’re rocking it down here this year!

Other events we’ll be attending include- contemporary Mexican cinema, a mezcal festival, a physical activity fair, some kind of gymnastics events, and a promising final concert on the beach! Look out, Puerto, here we come!

For a full calendar of events:

http://oaxacamio.com/puertoescondido/noticias-y-eventos/item/578-fiestas-de-noviembre-2015-del-1-al-29-de-noviembre-puerto-escondido-oaxaca.html

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Ten Reasons Why I Hate Numbered Lists (An English Teacher Can Count)

25 Sep

I admit, the title is not an accurate reflection of content, but it made you click on the article, right? Everybody loves these articles, except me. I am not a big fan of the excessive amount of articles in the world that are titled X number Things You Must Know! and the like. They make life sound so quantifiable. Ordered. Simple, if you will. Easy, even. And it’s not, dammit!

They’re so catchy, all these Cosmo-style relationship ones- 5 ways to tell he’s crazy about you;  the travel expert ones- 8 places you MUST visit in Mexico City ; the pseudo-health/science ones- The 3 worst things that age you faster ; the good little capitalist ones- These 4 essentials to buy cheaper online ; and my least favorite, those self-help “just do this and everything will be perfect” type ones-  6 tips to reduce stress  (And you know with a title like that they’re going to tell you some lame crap like “Eliminate stressors.” Well tell me when you’re coming to collect my children then, buster. Call me up when you’ve got my winning lottery ticket, thanks.) There was even that movie called 10 Things I Hate about You, which I refused to see on principle. The worst part is when I find myself clicking on these kinds of articles sometimes because, shit, they make life sound so simple and ordered!

My life here is anything but ordered. I do love my personal lists, however- so I can prioritize my classroom tasks, so I remember to buy actual food and not just several different chocolate products and imported beer at the grocery store, so I can remember what the hell I’m supposed to be doing when I get up at 5 in the morning (get dressed- pack child’s lunch- pump milk- drink 2nd cup of coffee- and no my lists are not in order, thank you). But I don’t try to force my lists upon others (okay, maybe Conan has to suffer through my lists on occasion). For me, lists are a personal, intimate thing, not a way to prescribe your ideas to the public.

This week, however, I was reflecting upon my year in the university (yes, it’s been over a year!), and I ended up with a jumble of seemingly-random things to share. Thus I decided, hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So here you are, folks- my cheesy numbered lists.

Three Preposterous Things Students Say During Tests

 1.    Student: “Teacher, what does this word (insert target vocabulary word here) mean?”

         Me: “That’s a vocabulary word that you were supposed to study.”

        Student (possible response 1): “So, what does it mean?”

        Student (possible response 2): “Yes but I forgot.” Bats eyelashes innocently and/or smiles.

        Student (possible response 3): Blank look. “Vocabulary?”

2.    

       (variation 1)

        Student : “Teacher, I don’t understand this question. What do I write here?”

         Me: “You write the answer, based on this question (signaling where).”

        Student: “So it’s letter B, right?”

         Me: “I can’t tell you.”

         (variation 2)

         Student : “Teacher, I don’t understand this question.”

         Me: “Well, it’s asking you to answer like in this example above.”

         Student: Points to their answer. “Is this correct?”

         Me: “I can’t tell you.”

        (variation 3)

        Student : “Teacher, how am I doing?” Points to their answers.

         Me: Shoulder shrug. “I can’t tell you.”

        Student: “Why not?”

         Me: Facepalm self.

Me, at some point every quiz and exam

3.      Student 1: Waves and says something inaudible to Student 2.

         Student 2: Replies in a whisper which I can’t quite make out.

         Me: Clear throat and raise eyebrows while approaching chatty students. “There’s no talking during exams. See you                      guys tomorrow.” Take exams from Students 1 and 2.

        Student 1: Puts on shocked, sad face, despite the whole class having multiple warnings that this precise thing would                            happen since day 1 of class. “But teacher! I was just asking for an eraser!” (Which is possible, except I’ve                              explicitly told them before every single exam to ask ME if they need something so that I don’t suspect them                          of cheating, which definitely happens.) My all-time favorite response was: “But teacher! I was just saying hi!”

        Me: “Say hi before or after the exam next time. Bye.” (Yep, I’m the meanest teacher on Earth.)

Me, according to some students

The Three Most Inspiring Classes and Quirks from the Past Year

  1. The wooooo class

I often ask the student who’s talking (practicing or reading aloud or whatever) pick the next student to talk. In this especially hormonal class of 18 year old Animal Husbandry majors, any time a boy picked a girl, it elicited a “woooo” from the class. Every time a girl picked a boy, there was a woooo. Sometimes even when a girl picked another girl, or a boy picked another boy, they still got a giggly little woooo. I thought it was adorable and started harassing them to do it some more when they forgot about it for at one point in the semester. Now they are officially “the woooo class” (at least among us English profs).

Beyond their already fabulous woo, this class loved my enthusiasm- one girl always imitated my “I’ve seen the light” arm gesture with my “aaaaaaah” sound I make to signal that they should be excited about whatever I’m about to teach them. (Was she making fun of me? Of course, but very affectionately!) This class inspired me to create extra class interaction activities, thanks to making me laugh all the time. They always tried to distract me from the task at hand by asking personal questions (in Spanish, which I told them I would answer if they could ask in English, and then the whole class was capable of working together to string a real question together- amazing work, level 1!) They also complained constantly about having to come to English class and were always trying to make up reasons to not come, but they complained with a smile, and they had the best attendance of all my classes that semester. These guys secretly love English, and I loved them for it.

2.  The Physics professor who had class the slot before me at 12pm

He absolutely couldn’t manage to end class on time. Every day, I stood outside the classroom door, waiting for him to quit babbling, mentally adjusting my lesson plan based on how many minutes he was taking from my class. Then I’d go in and he’d have left his intricate drawings and accompanying mathematics all over the board for me to erase. “He’s trying to help build up my arm muscles,” I assured my students as I erased every day. “How is this great?” you might be wondering. Because karma is real, and the students despised his class! Which means they were thrilled to see me, and to have English class every day! Thank you, boring, long-winded professor, for inspiring my students to love English (even if I did have to mentally shake them awake)!

3.  Constant classroom entertainment- IN ENGLISH- provided by Miguel Angel, Abel and               Charlie

Think Ninja Turtle’s Michaelangelo- this Migue is a party dude, too, complete with badass motorcycle. Abel (pronounced like ah-bell) had a girlfriend in the class, but they never sat together. Instead, Abel sat with his bromance partner-in-crime Miguel. They were my class clowns, with constant banter about each other and everything else. They also provided commentary about what we were learning (“I think it was Mexican immigrants who built the Egyptian pyramids, too”), fun errors (“Did I approve my exam?”), making up Spanglish words (“I’m very tired; I need a siestation”). They contributed a steady, comical participation, and they did it mostly in English! If you’ve ever learned a language, you know how hard it can be to be funny in your foreign tongue. And these guys always had something to say. I like to think that these two inspired other students to learn more, thanks to using their wit and charm in English.

Okay, Miguel and Abel don’t look exactly like Matt and Mike above. Abel would totally be the guy on the left, though, if you added glasses. You get the idea.

Theirs was my favorite class that semester because the whole (level 3) class, compared to many others, was so responsive and participatory. Their class also included Charlie (not Carlos, thank you, but Charlie), my super adorable, fast-talking, pretty boy, English genius with the worst attendance ever (“I’m sorry, I fell asleep during lunch!… Listen, teacher, I have this opportunity to do modeling, but it’s justamente during class hour.” Convincing excuses when you can say it in English, let me tell you.) Charlie was one of the only students who ever used my actual name instead of “Teacher” sometimes, and he went on to tell me I was adorable (in a puppy-dog, head-patting kind of way) on more than one occasion. If I hadn’t been so amused by it I might have had to smack him. But instead I looked forward to Charlie and his thinly veiled false modesty. The lesson here is that you can get away with just about anything in my class when you do so in English.

See, English Teachers Can Count!

There you have it, folks. I used numbered lists to organize my thoughts and shared it with the public. Was it effective? It wasn’t so bad for me after all. Maybe I’ll convert and start communicating everything in numbered list. Titles to be used include: 5 Reasons Why Dora the Explorer is Taking Up Too Much Space in my Brain, 18 Things The Supermarket Had Last Week that No Longer Exist, and finally, 2 Small Children and the Infinite Ways in Which they Refuse to Sleep. Because some things just can’t be quantified.

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LTR Piropos

6 Sep

My relationship with the construction worker down the street is advancing to whole new levels these days. I see him every day on my way to and from work, ever since they started construction there. It’s been at least a month, so we’re already into long-term relationship mode.

We were taking things slowly. First he just whistled at me. Then one day an older man was walking down the street at the same time as me, in the opposite direction, and I told the man, “Creo que le está chiflando a Ud.”- I think he’s whistling at you. I thought he’d laugh, but instead he nodded seriously. Maybe he didn’t get it. I don’t know if he went to complain to the construction worker or what, but soon after that the construction worker started yelling, so I’d know his whistle was intended for me and not other old men, or, say, the dog walking by at the same time.

“Guera!” he calls out after the whistle, “guera” meaning something like “light-skinned person, feminine” (guero being the masculine version, and both words being slang only in Mexico, I’m pretty sure). Still I ignored him, because, well, I didn’t have anything to say to him. Without getting into all the personal-political ramifications, I’m pretty convinced that catcalling of this type is much more about posturing for other men than it is about expecting any response from the woman.

But Friday morning he stepped it up a notch. He whistled a couple times, and then shouted, “Guera! Te amo!” Wow! He loves me! He said he loves me! Considering the fact that I’d never even turned to look at him, it’s a pretty drastic statement. If he’s already capable of loving me and we’ve never even locked eyes, imagine what could happen over dinner and a movie!

Even though I don’t respond to his unsolicited attention, I have to admit that his declaration of love brought a smile to my face. First of all, it’s beautifully absurd. He didn’t even say “te quiero” which could imply wanting me as much as loving me. No, straight to the verb amar, pure love. Did I mention we’ve never been closer than 10 feet to each other? So it’s pretty funny.

Secondly, it kind of reminded me of the piropos – the catcalls- in Paraguay. There was never any crudeness to it. Paraguayan men would whisper things like “Qué hermosa sos”- how pretty you are, or “Bonitos ojos”- nice eyes, or the really outlandish, “Hola, linda”- hello, pretty. They’d say stuff like this as they passed me, not being hostile or intimidating. Or they’d invite me to drink tereré, the national green tea beverage that people share from the same cup and straw. I even did stop and drink tereré with strangers a couple of times. That’s how comfortable I felt in the situation. (Granted, I don’t know if all men in Paraguay always catcall in this polite, respectable manner or if I just got lucky in the couple of months I spent there.) Of course, there’s still underlying sexism and rape culture in the fact that men feel entitled to comment on women’s bodies/attractiveness constantly, which is anger-inducing and wearisome when it builds up on you. But if it’s going to happen anyway, let it be Paraguay-style, please! Or let it be someone professing their love to me like the construction worker down the street!

It’s much better than some of the straight-out-of-a-porn comments I’ve gotten in the U.S. It’s much better than hostility. It’s much better than the aggressiveness, like the young guy on the scooter the other day, who asked me where I lived and tried to insist on accompanying me home.

So on my way home on Friday, when my construction worker yelled “Guera!” at me, I actually turned in his direction. I laughed a bit, because I was still thinking about his great love for me. He waved from the roof and said “Adios! Guera, adios!” There’s a piropo I can live with long term.

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The Exile Continues with a New Mexican-Gringuito Addition!

22 Mar

I  haven’t actually dropped off the face of the planet, as one might assume by the silence emanating from me these past few weeks. Many things have happened to conspire against me posting a blog piece, starting with pregnancy-induced utter despair and rage.

That first week that I skipped out on writing I did you all a giant favor. I was almost 41 weeks along, huge and swollen and over it. All of the space in my brain was consumed with imagining this baby´s birth. My blog would have been about 5 pages of something like “This is so unfair. I already had one baby at 42 weeks. The second one is supposed to come early. Why didn’t my baby get the memo? Why do all of my children torture me like this? (all being all two of them) I’m never doing this stupid pregnancy thing again! Unless the baby agrees to come out at 38 weeks! But spontaneously! I don´t want a C-section or an induction! This is so unfair!” Etc., etc., etc. So you can thank me later for sparing you from that.

Worst of all that first week I didn´t write, the next day I was going to have to go back to the insurance company to negotiate with burocratic maniac doctors to get my prenatal maternity leave extended. If you read the súper-saga about my dealings with the insurance company  https://exiletomexico.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/me-versus-the-insurance-company-doctors-a-saga/, you can imagine how much I was looking forward to the experience. Right up until I walked through the doors at 6.30 AM I had held out hope that contractions would start and save me from having to deal with the evil insurance company. But alas, this child is just as thankless as the first, and did not come out in time to rescue me.

I set baby a deadline after that. Induction was happening Friday morning, ready or not. It would put me at not quite 42 weeks, but I decided it was close enough, especially since my dates weren’t chipped in concrete. Conan and I planned an alone day for Thursday, hoping to naturally induce the baby. So the grandparent schedule for taking care of Lucia was already in place when I woke up with contractions that Thursday morning. Finally! Apparently it takes impending induction dates to make my babies come out. So be it. It finally happened!

I won’t trouble you with all the gory and glorious details (this might be a little too public for me), but it was a pretty fantastic birth. It was about 18 thousand times faster than Lucia’s birth. My doctor was awesome and there were zero interventions of any kind, exactly like I wanted. Conan and I walked along the beach during part of my labor. It was all very laid-back and peaceful, and best of all, “the baby came out of your belly!” as Lucia says. Ta-da! We have a little boy named Khalil Michael. “Now you have a Mexican child and a gringo child,” people tell us, thinking that where you’re born is the only determinante to citizenship. Really they’re both dual citizens. “Now we can have one kid who can be the president of Mexico and one who can be the president of the US,” Conan corrects them. (I’m praying our children won’t be politicians, period, but, you know….)

my two tiny dual citizens

my two tiny dual citizens

So that week I had a newborn baby! Thus I excused myself from blogging again. Plus my mom, Dee, and my mother-in-law were all still in town so it seemed excessive to make myself work. My mom and Dee were leaving on Monday, so I promised myself I´d get some writing in then.

The next week I got started on two separate posts, but I failed to finish anything by noon on Sunday when my Dad and Karen, my stepmom, arrived. It was definitely not happening then. So this week I continued to work on my two posts, and I started writing down Khalil´s birth story to boot. I was being seriously virtuous about this writing thing. And then my computer went out.

But this is it anyway! No more excuses. (Well, I’m excused from not having more photos because of the computer situation.) I’m posting this little update at the very least. Just so you, dear, lovely reader, don’t think I’ve ceased to exist. This merry-go-round exile in Mexico continues, with a bigger and better family.

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Not a Cork nor Corn, So There’s No Popping Happening Here

22 Feb

I’ve changed my official story about the worst part of pregnancy. Yes, those first few weeks of nausea and exhaustion- tiredness all the way down to the bone- are not pretty. They’re certainly not my favorite part. But now I proclaim that this is the absolute worst part. The desperate waiting at the end.

If I were one of those lucky women whose babies come out at 38 weeks, then I’d go back to believing the beginning is the worst. But I’m not, obviously. I’m a traumatized pregnant lady whose first child came out two weeks “late.” I’m a recovering control freak who is trying to shut up that annoying voice in my head that tells me every day that I’m not in labor must be because I’m doing something wrong, or not doing it right, or not doing enough. It must be my fault, even though technically there’s nothing “wrong” even happening!

Granted, I know I can’t control this. And I know better than to buy into this whole early/late thing with babies. I know that a due date is a general estimation. Only 5% of babies make their appearance on their due date. Anywhere from 2 weeks before to 2 weeks after the due date is officially in the normal range. That’s right, a whole month of possibilities for a full-term baby to appear. It’s quite a range, and yet not something we talk about as normal. So knowing that it’s normal doesn’t make it feel normal when you come from a culture where being late is practically a sin. It’s been sad to realize that here in Mexico, where being late is a norm, for some reason this acceptance doesn’t apply to babes in utero.

On top of that, my belly expands into the enormous range from pretty early on in pregnancy. Even though my weight gain is in the normal range, my belly appears to be excessively large to many people (yep, me included). Thus I get comments about twins and other multiples, and people start acting like my due date is somewhere around seven months along. So by the time I actually reach 40 weeks people have been expecting my baby for ages already. Not helpful.

38 week belly, back when I was still feeling hopeful!

38 week belly, back when I was still feeling hopeful! I’ll be 40 weeks tomorrow….. 

Photo on 2-12-15 at 9.17 AM #3

Lucia and I on loaner exercise balls!

Plus there’s the completely uncomfortable, your-body-is-taken-over-by-this-supposedly-human-creature factor going that effectively prevents me from thinking about anything beyond pregnancy and birth at this stage. Let me give you an idea about this stage. One of my fingers is constantly numb from some nerve the baby’s pressing on. I pee like every half hour. I walk like a duck. It takes 3 minutes to roll over or get out of bed or the car. I’m hungry every two hours, and I mostly want things I didn’t even like before pregnancy, like chocolate and red meat. I’m in 90 degree heat with 100 kajillion percent humidity with a lead basketball strapped to my belly, so I sweat from sunup to sundown and every moment in between. And I can’t even change clothes after all my 18 showers a day because there are only about 5 outfits that still fit me. In other words, every aspect of my being is used and consumed by this little creature that, despite all this, I’m dying to meet.

So here’s a little public service announcement: Don’t say any of the following to super pregnant women unless you want to get punched in the face (or watch her in tears, or some other not pleasant reaction- you never know what a ragingly pregnant woman will do!).

1) “You’re having twins, right?” or “How many babies are in there?” or “Wow, you’re huge!”

The thing about this is that nobody likes comments about the size of their body, ever really. Pregnancy is no different, except you have raging hormones that make it even more offensive. I have seen people give pregnant women a hard time for having too small of a belly, too. Geez! Just lay off.

2) “You still haven’t had that baby?” or “When is that baby going to come out?”

Dude, if you are looking at me and I still have the lead basketball strapped to my belly, I am indeed still pregnant! You don’t need to ask. And unless someone is having a planned C-section, they don’t get to know when the baby is going to come out, so it’s just annoying to be expected to know the unknowable.

3) “That baby just doesn’t want to come out.” or “That baby might never come out, huh?”

This is already the worst nightmare for many pregnant women- that we’ll just keep being pregnant forever. Don’t contribute to it! 

There are lots and lots of other things you shouldn’t say to pregnant women, but this is my short list for the third trimester, or the “about to pop” phase. This “about to pop” thing goes with taboo # 1, especially when you don’t know how far along someone is, and when you have no idea how desperate they are to freaking “pop” already. Right as I was telling Conan that I was really glad the whole about-to-pop comment doesn’t get said here, or doesn’t translate well, or for whatever wonderous reason that I could appreciate this cultural difference, an old lady came along and ruined it for me. “Se va a reventar el volcan” she told me, “the volcano’s going to explode”. I don’t know if this is due to globalization or if it’s just part of the universal plot to drive pregnant women crazy, but either way it’s ugly. 

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Living on Prayer (of all shapes and sizes and not just Bon Jovi)

8 Feb

Prayers made to the Virgin of Juquila remind me a bit of a third grader negotiating with Mom, trying to barter action figure cards for more time playing the video game. Does Mom really want your action figure cards? Does she just want you to sacrifice something? It doesn’t make much sense to me, but who am I to judge? 

I’m honestly not even trying to be snarky about the situation. The thing is, people go to the Virgin when they need a miracle. It’s a shameful sign of how bad the socio-economic situation is in Oaxaca and our neighboring states when most people’s miracles are things like buying a car, building a house, graduating from school, good health for their child- things that I fervently wish did not need miracle status to be acquired by people.

What I might think is a little weird, though, is the kind of deal that people make for their miracles. They make a promise to the Virgin in exchange for Her help in whatever it is they’re asking for. For instance, that three-day, giant, public, Christmas celebration I mentioned a few weeks ago. My friend’s family hosted that because of her mom’s promise in exchange for her health. One of Conan’s cousins promised to visit the Virgin every year in exchange for his truck that he uses to work. There are long braids at the shrine from women who obviously promised their hair away. There are folks who have promised to go walking on their knees from the entrance to town all the way to the church. Whole families make trips with a hired band, and dance in front of the church. All in exchange for something.

I guess, though, I just don’t get what it is the Virgin wants with someone’s braid. I don’t really understand why it would please Her to see someone get bloody knees. I can’t really imagine how it benefits anyone except the folks of Juquila selling stuff to the pilgrims if people come every year, or hire a band, or make a big fireworks display, or whatever. Wouldn’t it be better if they, I don’t know, promised to do some kind of good deed for someone else every year? Or even promised to improve themselves in some way- give up some vice or do regular exercise or something. I don’t know. I’m digressing from my point horrendously now.

My point is, there are all kinds of prayers, and I suspect they all work equally well as long as you put your energy into it and believe enough. I was raised Catholic, although the only remnants of that aspect of my life are my frequent prayers to my two favorite saints. One of them has been disclaimed from the Church, though- go figure- but that’s not stopping my loyalty. St. Christopher is (and always will be, for me) not only the patron saint of travelers, but also of Barga, the small town my grandmother is from. I’m convinced St. Chris is the only reason I’m still alive, after all the outrageous risks I’ve taken time and time again on all kinds of trips. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure I can attribute some of my smashing success as a traveler to his help (beyond not dying, also acquiring good stories, meeting amazing people, seeing cool stuff, everything flowing just like it should with little effort on my part). That said, do I think there’s a guy up there in heaven or outer space or I don’t know where just waiting to hear my prayer and throwing out a helping hand? Not exactly. I picture the situation a bit more like the Mayans and their corn god- something/someone specific to focus your energy on when you’re want to invoke forces from beyond yourself.

My other saint/minor god is Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things (not to be confused with Saint Jude, who’s got it covered on lost causes). In Mexico, somehow, partly due to an old pop song, he’s become associated with helping girls find a boyfriend. Personally I’ve never asked him for this, but do regularly need help finding keys, notebooks, misfiled important documents, and much more. He pretty much always comes through for me, so who am I to doubt? 

I am a believer in the power of prayer. I think that when you focus your energy, send your energy up and out to whomever or whatever you call this energy beyond you- God, Allah, the Universe, a saint, whatever- then powerful things can happen. It’s no guarantee. But it doesn’t hurt, either.

As a teenager, I discovered paganism, with all it’s lovely rituals to help you focus your energy. I’ve long since stopped practicing any kind of religion, but I have kept on with my beliefs about the spiritual universe. So I pray, in my way. I don’t fall to my knees, I don’t cast a circle, but I do concentrate, focus my thoughts, try to be very clear about my intentions and my desires, try to get beyond the daily banality for just a moment.

Back in December, just two months shy of the estimated arrival time of this new baby, we still had no idea where we were going to give birth. I was getting some prenatal care with my insurance company, but I was adamant that I’d rather give birth in the middle of the street than leave responsibility for my body and my baby in their hands. That said, I knew no other doctor, had investigated zero other options. I was getting nervous.

I was also bummed out because we really wanted to have a doula like we did with Lucia’s birth. A doula is a non-medical birth assistant- basically someone who is there to support mama and (if present) papa. Our doula in Lucia’s birth had been fabulous times a thousand, surely one of the reasons that I did not end up with a C-section, and definitely a big help in keeping Conan and I on-track and relatively sane. Down here I’d only heard a vague rumor of one existing doula, and couldn’t find her contact information. I didn’t want any of our friends or family down here to accompany us in the birth, either, because we couldn’t think of anyone who could remain calm and collected, be emotionally helpful and get super intimate with us in that space.

Before I even tried any silent prayers to the universe, I did a little social prayer; I started talking to everyone and their mother about birth options, putting my energy out there, letting my intentions and hopes be known by all. This is the only real way to acquire information down here; Google ain’t got nothing on word of mouth. 

Sure enough, I started reeling in bits and pieces of useful information. I got the name of the doula. I made an appointment with a gynecologist at a clinic with a reputation for quality care. I got contact info for a German expat who had three home births here. The lovely German lady (who I’m still waiting to meet in person- it’s hard to coordinate busy mom schedules!)gave me even more information about possible doctors, and I made more appointments.

At the very end of December we found our ideal doctor. He’s a gynecologist, but he’s also the grandson of a midwife. He was the only doctor we met who wasn’t pretentious, who didn’t act like whatever procedures he routinely does for birth are definitely the best thing for us and if I want anything different it’s “at my own risk.” He really listened to us and didn’t think our ideas were unreasonable. He expressed his ideas about C-sections in exactly the way that I think of them- as a wonderful option that can save the lives of mothers and babies when they’re necessary, but that aren’t necessary very often and are risky when they’re not called for. (And in a country that now has the highest C-section rate in the world- yes, more than the U.S.!- having a doctor who’s not anxious to cut me open was of great importance.) The clinic where we’ll be for labor and delivery is comfortable and relaxing, much more like a birthing center than a clinic or a hospital. I’m thrilled that we’ve found what seems like an ideal set up to welcome this new creature into the world.

But then there was still the doula issue. Conan is an excellent birth partner, and I’d never have made it through Lucia’s birth without him. But it’s an awful lot of pressure on him if he’s the only one supporting me. So I enlisted my mama, an ex-Catholic who is an expert in prayer She’s had a whole lifetime of practicing prayer and trying out different communication styles with God and/or the Universe. “Don’t pray for a doula, though,” I told her. “It’s really unlikely I’ll find an official doula down here. Just ask for somebody who can accompany us in the way that we need.” 

I kept up my social prayer and I’m sure my mom did her part. I found an email for the doula, who was pregnant with her third and had almost the same due date as I do. She had just moved back to Canada after six years here. But she gave me some suggestions for places to look for accompaniment. And she said there was another lady who should be in town who’s done this sort of thing before. The doula said she’d contact the other woman and see if she could talk to me. 

She did agree to talk to us. When we met her, she was a bit hesitant in the matter. “I had no intention of working as a doula down here,” she explained. She and her husband spend the winter down here every year with their daughter and grandkids. “For one, my Spanish isn’t good enough,” she said. And yet somehow two other women had been put in her path just before me- a woman from Mexico City who speaks excellent English, and a French-Canadian woman who does linguistic services in French, Spanish, and English. They were looking for information and help, and so she agreed to teach a birth class, even though she said she’d never even attended a birth class before. She does have training and experience from the U.S. as a doula, plus some experience attending births here in Puerto. We had a nice chat and it seemed like she could potentially provide exactly the kind of support we were looking for. She did not really want to commit, though. Perhaps she was feeling a bit overwhelmed at this sudden surge of need for her help when it wasn’t something she’d been looking for. “I’ll pray about it,” she told us. “And you guys pray about it, and we’ll see.”

Forces aligned correctly in the universe, prayers were prayed, and a week later she was giving us paperwork to fill out so she could be our doula. So here we are, in February, me 38 weeks pregnant and now with an ideal birth team lined up to help bring this new life out of me.

Of course there are no guarantees on anything. Our doula could get called to the U.S. for her very elderly mother-in-law. Or the woman from Mexico City with almost the same due date could go into labor at the same time as me (which would be really bad because we have the same doctor as well!). All kinds of things could go wrong with the baby. But at the end of the day, part of the strength and wonder of prayer, in whatever form it takes, is the power of letting it go. When you believe in a power or a force beyond yourself, you can bundle your worries and doubts into a prayer, and ship it right out so you’re not hanging on to your fear, so you’re not taking responsibility for things which you don’t have much (if any) control over. So I guess even if you have to walk a long way on your knees or cut off your hair or make some other deal, if it can help you travel down your path and give you a little piece of mind as well, then it’s probably all worth it, and about as much as any of us can hope for.

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Just Keep Breathing

25 Jan

The year that I was pregnant with Lucia- my first pregnancy- two children I knew died in completely separate incidents. First, a friend and coworker’s only child, a ten year old girl who was charismatic, smart and super caring, died in a car accident. Then my best friend’s second child, a beautiful baby boy, died of SIDS. They were different kinds of deaths, but what they had in common most in my mind was the suddenness, and the total injustice. Their parents in both cases were doing everything right. Ruby, the little girl, was wearing her seatbelt, in a car with both her parents, in the back seat. Neither her father’s caution in driving nor her seatbelt saved her. Likewise, Charlie’s parents could practically be poster children for doing all the things we know reduce the risk of SIDS- putting your baby to sleep on their back and all those other tips that I don’t even remember, but that they always did. And it didn’t matter. He still died, suddenly and unexplainably. Unfairly.

I got pregnant for the second time over the summer, and a month or two later another baby I knew died. (Is me being pregnant causing children’s deaths? Jeez, there’s some negative thinking….) It was the son of a really nice lady who, with her three sons, was renting a room from my mother-in-law. The lady had become a good friend of Paulina’s, often sharing meals and conversation as well as space. We had gone to visit and gotten to know her and her kids as well, including Chuy, her adorable, totally easy-going baby. He was sick part of the time we were visiting, with some kind of cold-like illness. Then he was sick off and on for a while. His mother took him to various doctors, and they gave him various medicines, and he seemed to get better, and then suddenly he was really, super sick and in the hospital. And they couldn’t help him by then.

Part of me can’t help but wonder if his death could have been prevented with better medical care. Certainly, Chuy’s mother did everything she could and used every resource and suggestion she had available. I absolutely don’t think it was her fault in any way, shape, or form, and I hope she doesn’t think that either, even in her darkest moments. Babies die in the U.S., too, despite some of the best medical advances out there. But how can you not question yourself, question all the events and circumstances, dwell on the what ifs and whys and why nots when life takes away someone you love that much, someone who’s not “supposed to” die until after you? How can I not imagine myself in Chuy’s mom’s place, with the same lack of options that I feel confident about when it comes to my child’s (and soon to be my children’s) health? Even while I do not believe it was her fault, I wonder if me finding more and possibly better options here could potentially prevent my child’s death in the future. 

Mostly, though, through all of these deaths, I cried and mourned for the child and their parents, and I stubbornly refused to consciously think about the implications and possibilities for loss in my life. “It’s not gonna happen to you,” my best friend tried to reassure me, even in the midst of all her grief and sorrow. But I think you can only fool yourself into believing that if you think that you are somehow fundamentally different from the person experiencing loss, or if you find a way to blame them and can therefore convince yourself that it can’t happen to you because you won’t do x, y, or z. But of course I knew that it wasn’t their fault, and that I was no different, and that it could happen to me. It can. SIDS or a car wreck or cancer or a million billion other things. So I promised myself, I decided resolutely, in the aftermath of those two great losses during my first pregnancy, while inhaling and exhaling grief for what seemed like weeks on end, that I wouldn’t- couldn’t- let fear run my life. That instead I had to try to just be grateful for my child’s existence the days that she exists in my life.

So Lucia’s entire first year of life, no matter how exhausted and sleep-deprived-delusion and burnt out I felt, I thanked the universe profusely every time she woke up, even as I gritted my teeth and wondered how much sleep deprivation might kill me. She is no longer at risk for SIDS, but it doesn’t mean a kajillion other things can’t happen to her. I think that I am prepared, I think that I can deal with (some) bad things that might happen to her, but thinking about her dying from one of them, thinking of her not existing in my life, is so tremendously painful that occasionally I start to panic.

My angst and anxiety mostly only flare up when she’s having a health problem that’s not a normal cold, which thankfully is not very often. When it does happen, though, I get alternately angry and scared. I get angry imagining that if I lived in Louisville still, I would have the answers. I already had our perfect pediatrician there. When I needed a gynecologist, I told my friends what kinds of attitude/practice I was looking for, and they recommended me someone fabulous. My life was full of information and options to make informed choices about the health of myself and my child (and to recommend about the health of my partner). Here it’s just not.

I feel like I’m not being a good enough mother, because after a year in Puerto we still don’t have a doctor here that we can trust, that we have any confidence in. Lots of people, ourselves included, for convenience and price, go to the “pharmacy doctor”- a doctor who works in a pharmacy and sees patients on an acute basis. But pharmacy doctors have prescribed me an antibiotic that is dangerous during pregnancy even though I told them that I’m pregnant. They’ve given Lucia medicine that I’ve read isn’t used anymore for that kind of infection. For these and other reasons, I don’t think they’re a good option. But I don’t know what the good option is.

Many of our friends with kids go to the public health clinic, either because they’re happy enough with it or because they don’t have any other options economically. I was not happy enough with it, but neither were we impressed the one time we shelled out half a day’s pay for a pediatrician. Charging a lot doesn’t always mean they have qualities that you’re looking for. I also haven’t even bothered to sign her up on my insurance, because it’s a toss-up on them being more or less useless than most of these pharmacy doctors.

Thus, I feel like all health problems are on our shoulders, as parents practically acting as her doctor. I feel this immense stress that we have to figure it all out and advocate and push and prod for what we hope is the right kind of treatment. It’s a lot of pressure, to say the least. Not knowing where to go for health problems makes me feel ignorant and helpless and full of indecision. I am terrified that I’m going to make the wrong (uninformed) decision and it could be life or death.

I don’t think I realized just how badly I was handling the situation, emotionally, until the other night when I put myself into a panic imagining that Lucia was having an allergic reaction to a medicine we were giving her for a urinary tract infection. Her breathing seemed too labored, and I just felt like something else was wrong. She was getting worse instead of better, despite a couple doses of antibiotic she’d already taken. Her fever wasn’t going away even with fever reducer and cool compresses, and I just had a feeling that she needed a better doctor than the stupid pharmacy doctor we’d taken her to. Although she was sleeping, I wanted to take her to this expensive private 24 hour clinic right then and there. Conan wanted to wait until morning. I insisted. Well, to put it outright, I said, “I’m taking her whether you want to or not because if anything happens to her I’m going to kill myself.”

Whoa. Where did that come from? I had most definitely not been sitting around contemplating suicide because of her health problems, but I sounded eerily decided and sure of myself when I said it. Perhaps I was just trying to shock Conan into action? (I’m gonna go with that explanation, thanks.) I even kind of freaked myself out at that point, but I was too focused on getting her to what I hoped would be a better doctor to worry about it.

The doctor there certainly seemed more competent. She prescribed her a different antibiotic. We talked about allergic reactions (Lucia was not having one). I calmed down. Lucia’s fever went down a little more in the night air on the way there (she still had one, though). We couldn’t actually acquire the antibiotic until the next day, though, so yes, it probably really could have waited till morning (although points for my team, we probably waited less time at the clinic because it was late at night, and the price was the same). Days later, lab results showed that her infection was indeed resistant to the antibiotic that the pharmacy doctor had prescribed her, so I was right that it wasn’t helping.

By far the best things, for me, that came out of our nighttime trip to the doctor / my little panic attack were 1) knowing there is someplace decent to take her for emergencies, 2) calming myself down enough to get through the night, and 3) convincing myself to keep trying other doctors and pediatricians. I decided that even if we spend a whole month’s salary trying out doctors, I have to find a doctor that I feel is knowledgable and a good fit for my child. Even if we have to go to other towns to find it. I can’t take the pressure I’m putting on myself for her health. I can read lots of books and internet articles, I can take care of my kid in general and be a great advocate, but I’m not and I can’t be her doctor. If we have to go into debt to have a good doctor for her, it’ll still be worth it, better than late night panic attacks and suicide threats.*   

Meanwhile, I’m trying to wrap my heart around this lack of control, still. Intellectually I know that my kid can have the perfect doctor, that I can “do everything right” and there’s still zero guarantee of her safety. Intellectually, I know that bad things happen to “good” and “bad” people alike, and that life isn’t some cheesy movie where things turn out fairly.

I know all this, but internalizing it emotionally, especially in the context of your child, is a horse of a different color. I mean, starting in pregnancy there’s such a fine, weird line of being totally responsible for them and yet still not being in control of what happens to them. Like you can wash their hands after they use the restroom and before they eat, and breastfeed, and give them only healthy food (for a while, anyway), but it doesn’t mean they won’t get sick. When you’re pregnant you can give up coffee and medium-rare steak and follow all the other rules, but it doesn’t guarantee you won’t have a miscarriage or a stillbirth. And then there are all the women who don’t follow the rules, to whatever extent (like my mom who smoked cigarettes throughout her pregnancy- gasp!), and who still have perfectly healthy babies. So what’s the point? Why even bother to act like it matters what we do, if it doesn’t give us the desired outcome?

Intellectually, I know that it’s a good idea to do the best you can because at least you’re more likely to keep your kids safe and healthy. But where do you draw the line? Up to what point can we pat ourselves on the back for having healthy kids and/or blame ourselves when our kids are not healthy, or when something bad happens to them? I mean, who are we kidding? I don’t even have all that much control over my own life and what happens to me, so how could I possibly really control what happens to my kid?

I don’t have the answers. I doubt you have answers, either, dear reader, parent extraordinaire though you may be. I don’t think there are real, solid answers. So before this new baby arrives and I stay up half the night watching him or her breathe, I’m trying to re-learn how to breathe myself. I’m trying to get more comfortable acknowledging my life in this gray, indefinite, uncertain universe. I’m not trying to prepare myself for the worst. I don’t think “the worst” will ever be anything but unbelievably, excruciatingly painful, and I don’t think having imagined it or practicing for it would make it any easier. I suspect it just makes us have more fear.

Instead I want to embrace my joy. I want to be able to nod at my fear, and let it go. Inhale it, and exhale it back out. I want to appreciate this great privilege (and great trial!) that is being a parent. I want to be able to emotionally internalize this knowledge that I don’t “deserve” this- be it a positive this or a negative this- any more or less than anyone else, that I can’t control what happens in life, period. Of course I want to strive to do my best, to be my best, as a person, as a parent, just because I want to. But I want to live knowing that I get to mess up and not be perfect and not do everything perfectly, and that it doesn’t make me more or less responsible for what happens. And when in doubt, I’ll try to keep breathing. Inhaling and exhaling, hopefully more joy and pleasure than guilt and fear. Breathing. And hope that my kids will, too. 

*I’m pleased to report that we’ve since been to a pediatrician that we all feel good about- even Lucia felt comfortable in the doctor’s office for the first time ever! The doctor charges quite a bit more than these cheap (and crappy) pharmacy doctors, but she’s trilingual, and experienced, and nice, and totally, totally worth it for our piece of mind. Thank you, universe!

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