Mexican Revolution Monument



Today Doug and I went out to the plaza across from the hotel. On the weekends it turns into a market. We did finally go get cell phones and we walked through the market. There was a clown doing some tricks and we accidentally walked right through his stage area of the side walk and he yelled out in English, "Hello Friends. How are you. My name is Jacki Chan." We just kept walking away laughing while the audience surrounding him was laughing. We bought some fun little trinkettes and then walked to a taco stand for lunch. It was yummy! Then we walked down the street to a gait looking thing. When we got closer it was a lot taller and bigger than we thought. It was the Mexican Revolution Monument and Museum. We went up to the observation deck for $40 pesos a piece. We could see all around the city. Then we went down to the museum and read about the building. It was meant to be a huge government palace but there were numerous obsticals in building so they redesigned what would have been the dome of the palace and made it a gateway. There is a park surrounding the dome and a fountain to play in. Sally will love playing in it. It's a lot bigger than the tiny fountain we used to play through in Silver Spring. Fun little afternoon. Click here for some more info on the plaza. http://www.mexicocity-guide.com/attractions/revolution.htm

House hunting

An entry way of a La Condesa home. So cute.

A Plaza in Coyoacan

We had a meeting on Friday after orientation was done with some ladies from an NGO that Doug will be working with here in Mexico City. We discussed many things including a place for us to live. There are two neighborhoods that were recommended for us. La Condesa and Coyoacan. La Condesa is located in the lowest lying part of Mexico City. As you may or may not know, Mexico City was built on top of a lake that has been filled in. So the ground can shift over time, especially in Condesa. Also the earthquakes are felt more in this part of the city. It's a beautiful area with parks and cafes and A LOT of 'For Rent' signs. Not all of these are on a website so the best way was to just walk. On Saturday we met a couple from the orientation that had already found an apartment in Condesa and they offered to walk around with us. We did this for 4 hours while chatting. There were many signs but we just took pictures of their info and had to get back to the apartment to call or email them. We have yet to buy phones here. It's expensive and we just have to find the right place to get a sim card or totally new phones. We stopped for a rest at a new pizza place in the neighborhood with a brickoven. It was yummy. Our pizza was a crust with cheese and garlic, no sauce and proschuto on top. Interesting but good. So Condesa really appealed to me for lots of reasons including a single woman from the program who has a 14 month old girl who lives close for playdates with sally, a girl's orphanage right across the street from our friend's place, local markets and it's quiet...but it's above our price range. The two that are in our price range is a studio apartment or a one bedroom. After our 4 hour walk around La Condesa we decided to brave the underground Metro to Coyoacan. To get to the stairs down to the Metro you had to walk through a packed plaza with kiosks of all sorts. A tent city like area with people, food, cell phones, clothes you name it. We passed through one isle where a teenage girl was on her laptop surfing facebook. It made the world seem so small to me. Like this girl in the middle of a shanty market, on her wi-fi surfing facebook. Hmm. The Metro was 6 pesos for the both of us to ride one way, this is about 40 cents in $US. Crazy cheap. We arrived at Coyoacan pretty quickly acutally. This trip we've been only taking taxis that have to sit in traffic. We didn't realize that the metro would fly like that! Of course it worried me a little being down under a sinking city in a train car flying 60mph with the windows open from the top. Ah! But like I said, we arrived quickly and unscathed. lol. The first impression I got of Coyoacon was dirty and much more poluted air than up in Codesa. But after we crossed over the highway and got into the village it stole my heart! Cobble stone roads leading to parks. Allie ways of all different color stucco homes with metal baloconies overlooking the streets, plants and flower boxes in every window. It was SO quiet you could hear your own breath. Quite a contrast from the center of the city wher our hotel is. We saw a lot of people coming from different directions all semi dressed up and walking with family and friends. They seemed to be heading towards a park with a large gate. Music was playing and there was food cooking. It was as if the whole community was meeting for a weekend fiesta. I wonder if it happens all the time? :) What a great place to live. It was like the Latino Truman show. Lol. We continued to walk around and found only a couple of for Rent signs. We were exhauted from walking all day and decided to call it quits. We got back on the Metro toward the centro historia. When we came out of the Metro we realized it was right across a park from our hotel. How easy! But the park that was quiet the day before was now a vibrant market with music, food, games and clothing to buy. We stopped and bought a water and walked out the other side to our hotel. We were just to tired to walk through and soak in everything. We rested for a half an hour or so, skyped with Sally and our family then went to a movie. What a long Saturday. Still no decisions yet on the house for us but we'll find it. Today is Sunday. The sky is finally blue and we are going to venture out into the city to see what's open. We are ready to go home and see our girl but until then I think some shopping is in order. hehe.

Orientation week

Tuesday morning 2:15am the alarm went off. Randy (Father in law) picked us up to go to the airport. God bless his soul. We got to the MSP airport at 3:15am for our 6:30am flight per travel advisory advice when traveling international...and what do ya know the airport won't let you go through security until 4am. Weird. I went to bed with a stuffy nose the night before but I thought that it was my terrible MN allergies. It wasn't. That 2 hours in the morning from the time I woke up to the time we settled in at the MSP airport I was getting worse and worse. AND the stinkin coffee places didn't open unil 6 so we waited. Leave it to wonderful MN Caribou to take care of me. I got to the counter and the guys could see and hear how crappy I felt. They squeezed a fresh lemon for me into a cup, added hot water and I added honey and didn't even charge me. We boarded the plane and I got a box of kleenex from the stuardess. Thank you Delta. We had a lay over in Atlanta before traveling to Mexico City. We got some breakfast and got right on the next plane. I could feel my head starting to pound and the hot cold flashes. You all know how uncomfortable airplanes are especially if you're sick. I think I slept for maybe an hour. When we got to Mexico City we had no trouble going through immigration. But when we got to baggage claim Doug got my suitcase but not our large bag with our clothes to leave in Mexico (which also had all of his clothes). We did locate it in Atlanta. That was better news than if it had made it to Mexico City and we couldn't find it. They sent it to our hotel the next afternoon. We took at taxi to our hotel, Fiesta Inn in Centro Historia. Very nice. Great service. It's right above a mall with a Starbucks, Subway and McDonalds. Lol. The Mexican people love American Culture. Actually today I saw a billboard of One Tree Hill from the WB. There are Burger Kings everywhere and The Home Depot, Office depot, Costco, walmart and many other American companies. As soon as we checked into the hotel I pretty much crashed. Doug walked to a pharmacy to get me some medicine because at this point I had a full blown fever. They had bottles of water in our room for $34 pesos. Because you don't want to drink the water. I slept while Doug went downstairs to the meet and greet for all of the Fulbrighters. The next morning I still had a fever but felt a little better so I went down for breakfast. They had a chef at an omlette station and the buffet was typical Mexican food. Chicken with peppers, sweet breads, potatoes, tortillas, different freshed squeezed juices and then also some American stuff too like waffles and cereal. I couldn't eat much, still felt woozy. The elevation here is around 7500 feet, it's enough that you have to drink a lot of water and take it easy for a while just because it makes you dizzy. The hotel accomodations are so nice. The conference rooms were right next to the dining room. I went into the welcome and introductions session with Doug then had to leave because of my unbelievable amount of snot. lol. Sorry, but it was true. I went up to the room and blogged on my Amandakeillor.blogspot.com site and then Doug came and got me for lunch. That night Doug had the opportunity to go to the American Embassy to meet the Emassador. Sadly the spouses didn't get an invitation. I finally felt ok at 8pm so I went down to the mall area and ate a Pastor Quesadilla. It's pork in a tortilla sandwich and you but salsa on it. Yummo. He had a nice time at the Embassy. He said one of the Fulbrighters fainted while the Embassador was talking. She was apparently too warm. Thursday I was feeling a lot better, still stuffed up but not bad. We had an early breakfast because we had an early departure for the Teotihuacan Ruins via bus. It was a bumpy ride but the bus was comfy. We had fun laughing with the other kids. The ruins were huge! I couldn't believe the magnitude. We had been to some temples in bolivia but these were amazing. 2 large temples, the Temple of the Sun, and of the moon. We climbed to the top of the Temple of the sun. http://www.sacred-destinations.com/mexico/teotihuacan has the history and myths behind the Temples. It was my first outing from the Hotel and wow, what an exhausting day. We decided after talking to the kids on the bus that we should all go out salsa dancing later that night. Which we did and we were SO exhausted. Totally worth going to though! Right outside of the Salsa club there was a large plaza that had many meriochi band that hounded you for money for a song. We had them sing for us. Way cool. Doug and I went home alone which made me a little nervous but we had no issues. The next morning we all went to a government building and saw some amazing wall paintings and then went to the Templo Mayor Museum. This is a museum in the center of the city next to temple ruins that some electritions discovered in 1978. It's still being uncovered and items (intact) are still being pulled from the ground. It's amazing. A temple so large that they'll never find it all as the government buildings and palaces have been built right on top of most of the ruins. Then we celebrated together back at the hotel dining room with a traditional Mexican Feast again. Only this time it was all out! So fun!

Her Eyes. I'll Never Forget...

Her eyes. I'll never forget her eyes. Dark, lonely and helpless. This is the image I remember from the day my church showed a video of children in Africa who were dying because they couldn't get vaccines. That day I was sure that I was meant to GO. I didn't know where, when or how but I was going to go. I was 13. When I was 19 I got married, 23 when I became a nurse and 25 when I had a daughter. With each big change in my life I found a little more clarity of my mission. I knew that I wanted to be a nurse somewhere. With children somewhere. However at the end of nursing school in 2006 I lost my twin boys to prematurity at birth. With this pain and grief process my career focus changed from wanting to care for children to caring for adults. Slowly I healed from my loss and once again thought of serving in an orphanage somewhere someday. God had given me dreams of Thialand and I thought maybe that was my path. As the years of our marriage passed Doug didn't know where he fit in my mission. I now had a nursing license and could go anywhere yet he was working for a software company, in an office, with a degree in buisness administration. It was a great job with great people but where was that leading him as far as serving on a bigger scale. He used to say, 'what significant things can I do for people in developing countries with my degree, teach them to build buisness etc..?" That just wasn't a passion. He needed something with passion. Then he was given this amazing opportunity to go to law school. I was reluctant to move across the country but could see it in his excitement that he was finding something with purpose. With his amazing heart, wit and determination he got through law school with bounds of respect and support of many teachers and the Dean of the law school. He was given an opportunity to do research in Bolivia his first year in law school, and I think it was then that he found his mission. Youth in detention. His passion stemmed from his previous work with youth in Argentina nearly 10 years before. See how God works? So precise, so perfectly fit into His design. When we were in D.C. we had planned to move into apartments in one city but it fell through and they said they had another apartment in Silver Spring. I didn't have a job as a nurse there. But I found a hospital on the internet, applied and got the job the next day. Less than one mile from the apartment. AND that first summer we went to Bolivia. When we arrived home to our apartment complex we started communicating with our neighbors more and found relationships with many who were FROM Bolivia. We think this world is small and we live by chance, but Oh how God knows all of it's workings. We lived in an 80% hispanic complex and didn't know. I spoke spanish at work with my patients. I was being refined. For what? For this. I'm now writing from a desk in a hotel in Mexico City. Embarking on an adventure with my husband, a Fulbright Scholar and research grant recipient. We will live here for 9 months, learning the culture, researching juviniles in detentions. And what will I do? Work in an orphanage Lord willing. I don't have anything lined up yet. But I'm here. Lord, I am here. Friends, your prayers can help. I just need a place. How exciting it is!! My life actually makes sense. Crazy right?! If you had asked me 6 years ago what I thought of my life, I would have told you...
I don't want my life, God has forgotten me. Tragedy happened to me and I no longer could see anything good possibly coming from my life. I was asked to quit nursing school because of my losses. I was depressed and didn't see how God could use me. But today, today I am ready. Today I am redeemed. Sitting in a city I know nothing about...with my husband a unified mission. To serve God with our hearts. Share it with you. And be who we were always meant to be, missionaries.

ISAIAH 1:17

 "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Arrest oppressors. Defend orphans. Plead the case of widows." 

ISAIAH 6:8

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"