Fiesta Mexicana!

Sally has always been a fun, silly little girl. She also has always attracted other fun, silly little girls. In Washington it was Jordyn, Sabina and Samiya, in Minnesota it was Trena, and in Mexico it is a little girl named Tamara. Tamara is SO silly. I first met her at ballet, not knowing that Sally knew her from school. They started out the ballet class as normal little ballerinas dancing and floating like butterflies but about 5 minutes into it they were giggling, tickling and blowing on each others faces. Not the pristine, proper activity for a poised ballerina. Me and Tamara's mom were laughing so hard but yet trying to show the girls a straight, scolding face. 'Stop it' I mouthed. Finally after their noses were touching and they were giggling so hard and not listening I had to pull Sally out of the class and whisper 'sweet nothings' and a warning and then she was a little bit better. We then talked about where the girls go to school and realized they are in the same class. At the end of the ballet class I said, "Sally, you can't do that in ballet." She replied, "But this is what we do in school!" Oh my word, needless to say I was a little worried for their school teacher. Poor woman. Oh, that brings me back to the first day of school. I asked Sally how her first day was and was she good. She replied with, "Well, I was a teeeeeeny, tiiiiiiny bit naughty. Me and my FRIEND (Tamara) pulled a little boys hair." And Doug added, "Well at least she wasn't doing it alone." *Sigh. Anyways, Sally and Tami are the best of friends now. It's been 4 weeks of class and she loves her to pieces! Last weekend Tamara invited Sally to a Little Mermaid 4th Birthday Party. I told Sally that there would be pinata there. She was so excited. We arrived via bus, which always takes a bit longer to get anywhere as opposed to driving your car from point A to point B. On this particular bus (as we were already 1 hour late for a party that was scheduled from 10am to 3pm!! Whoa) our bus driver decided to stop for a pit stop. This hadn't happened up until now on all the crazy buses we've ridden on. He put her in park, jumped out and ran across the 4 lane road and vanished behind a parked truck. I was like what is going on. Sure enough he came running back after buying a bottle of water. I guess he deserved a break. Crazy. So we got to the party at 11. It was in a yard with a trampoline, 5 blow up jumpy things and a big playground for the 15 kids who were there. It was a mad-house. Music playing loudly, Color station and a pinata. Just like I thought. This pinata was a 4 ft tall figure of Ariel. The kids played for another hour after we got there as the parents sat around tables and talked. I sat with a couple who spoke some English but I ended up speaking more Spanish/Spanglish with them than they did English. Which eventually gave me a headache. We had lunch together, various options for taco fillings and beans and rice of course. All of the other kids eat this stuff but not Sally. She does not like beans. She'll eat the rice and veggies, but not the tacos or beans. So I gave her a tortilla and cucumbers and rice. All the while her eyes are wide watching the bouncy houses to make sure they're not goin anywhere. Hehe. After lunch they all colored and played with bubbles for an hour then they announced that it was time for the pinata. They get in a line and each kid holds a bag for their winnings and sing a little ditty during each kid's turn.

Spanish:
Dale, dale, dale.
No pierdas el tino.
Porque si lo pierdes.
Pierdes el camino.
Ya le diste una.
Ya le diste dos.
Ya le diste tres.
Y tu tiempo se acabó.

English:
Hit it, hit it, hit it.
Don’t lose your aim.
Because if you lose it.
You lose the way.
You hit it once.
You hit it twice.
You hit it three times.
And your time is up.



There is a rope attached to a pulley and a guy raising and dropping it so the pinata isn't all busted up in the first hit by the bigger kids. It was quite a sight to watch them beat the snot out of poor Ariel. She eventually succumbed to the beating and spewed out her innards of toys, balls and candy. Poor little Sally just stood there and took whatever candy fell at her feet. LOL. All the other kids know that you have to fight for your prizes. There were balls and bracelets and candy of all sorts. And she got 4 starburst candies. :) And she was happy! But there I was with my competitive side and I ran over and grabbed her hand to drag her to other prizes. There was a girl with 2 balls and I almost took from her when it rolled out of her over stuffed bag of goodies. We did end up finding a tiny bracelt which she was content with. Makes me feel like a good mom that my kid didn't throw a punch to get an over abundance of goodies. But it made me feel like a mean human to even think about stealing a ball for my kid. Well, I didn't actually do it. So after the pinata they played again and then the cake came out.They were cupcakes decorated as Ariel. So cute. Tasted gross. I don't understand these peoples takes on cake and hotdogs. Both discusting. I don't get it. But Sally did eat part of one cupcake. There was also jello shots, I mean jello cups for dessert. They love jello. There is actually a jello stand on our way to take Sally to school every morning. I love their senes of small buisnesses here. There was a guy walking up and down stopped traffic selling tiny hammers yesterday. lol. More power to ya buddy. Anyways, aside from my tangent, we had such a great time at the party, which was similar to our birthday parties but with more Latina Flava and less flava in the cakes.



Fair Quality Fairs

From the view of a 3 year old if you say "We are going to a fair" they get excited. Things go through their minds like "rides, food, clowns, prizes" They never think about what we as parents churn over, "are the rides safe, are all of the bolts tight, will she get sick from too much junk food, not to mention how much is this gunna cost me..." (Ok, this is making me sound like an overprotective Mother so I'll make the list short). Well, when we lived in MD we saw a traveling fair in the parking lot of the mall we went to almost daily. I am not a fan of traveling fairs and my previous sentence states. I think they are just accidents waiting to happen. We drove in and out of that parking lot 3 different days before her incessant begging turned my "No" into a "Yes" and she got to go on 2 rides; a little roller coaster with a chain to buckle her (phew) and the dino-tilt-a-whirl (which I went on with her). I was more scared than she was! That was it, she was hooked. She loves the 'rickety rides', because she doesn't know they are rickety. I love fair rides and roller coasters don't get me wrong, I grew up going to Valley Fair and rode everything. But those rides were stationary and up to code, with the occasional minor break down. But these traveling fairs just don't even look safe. The stories on the news of kids flying... oh man I can't even finish the statement. And now I've come to find out these American rides don't even compare to the scrap metal, high flyin, shaky screw, wire showing contraptions we've seen here in Mexico! Our church is close to a large park with a 'stationary scrap metal' fair, no less nerve racking. But I let her go on rides that go in a circle and not up in the air. She loves it. Boring and a waste of money but cheap enough fun for her. Last week we were told by our Internet cafe guy that there was a celebration of San Lucas on the Street San Lucas during the weekend. There would be food vendors and a fair. A traveling fair. Ooo goodie. We ventured out on Saturday night to the festivities. It was a fun cultural experience. We walked to the side street that had vendors on each side of the road. Breads, Tacos, Gorditas (fried tacos), Corn with lime juice and chiles, Corn dogs (that tasted nasty) and french fries, potatoes and a few others. It was more or less a block of street. Some people had their gates open and were selling goods or serving food from their courtyards, one had a sign up for you to use their 'bathroom' for 4 pesos. Of course Sally used this opportunity to have to pee. So we payed the nice people, walked through their narrow outdoor hallway past an apartment and we were directed to a tool shed looking thing, it was dark and musty and had junk in it including a sideways treadmill (always a great place for that) and there was a toilet, no flusher, no seat and shaky. Ok, here we go. Sally DO NOT TOUCH THE SEAT. She balanced while holding onto me and then we left (without flushing, I later remembered a bucket of water next to the toilet that was probably to flush, oh well). We washed our hands from a trickling pipe in the courtyard. It was an experience. My friend in D.C. would have rather walked the mile to the nearest Starbucks than to go in that bathroom. But eh, nothin a little soap can't tackle. We then proceeded down the street of vendors. We bought some adorable canvas paintings for Sally's room. With the vendors we noticed common theme, egg shells with paper mashay on one end. I finally asked what they were for and a lady said they are for smashing someone else's head and then proceeded to smash one on Sally. It was filled with confetti! Sally loved it so we bought 10 of them and smashed them on each other throughout the night. We watched a big band play in the San Lucas Catholic Church and then got some food. We ate the Corn with Chile and lime with cheese on top. We also sat at a small table and at some street tacos. Yum. We went back to hear the band who were all playing on a stage outside of the church now. Then once it was good and dark we went to the adjacent street to where the fair was. Or more, the recycled trashy rides that used be fair rides were. These things were hilarious. So ghetto. And Sally wanted to go on every ride. They are about $1.10 for each ride. She went on 4 I think. She had fun but I was all freaked out when she got on the little kid roller coaster that had no seat belt. It was slow enough that I wasn't nervous once it started. The last ride she went on was a princess train and near the end of it Doug cracked up at the fact the the first car of the train was connected by a wire going up to the light pole in the center of the track. The wire was taped up and shorted every once in a while. Lol. We smashed a few more eggs and laughed a lot. We stopped at the Internet cafe and found out his hard drive was almost done and he was happy, we told the guy we had gone to the festivities and that we enjoyed it. Even the rickety rides. 

Casa Hogar

Lupita, Mariana, Adriana, Fernanda, Natalia, Wendy

It was fun meeting the girls I'm going to work with yesterday. They are fun energetic kids. Three 2 year olds, an almost 4 year old and her baby sister Adriana 1 yr. It was kind of chaotic yesterday, just trying to keep them all at a table to learn so we just ran around and played on their ghetto slide. We were pretending to be animals and played Ring-Around-The-Rosie (which I hate singing thanks to my 7th grade science teacher who told me the meaning of the song). But they loved it. Today I brought crayons and coloring pages for them to color. But when I got there ALL of the kids from 2-13 wanted to color. So I included them for a while and spoke a lot of spanish with them. I taught some English words to the figures in the Color books too. I sang to them a spanish worship song that I know and they loved it. I did take a lot of pictures today but per the discretion of my husband the fact that I don't have permission from the parents I'll just post one. Of the class. :) They are really warming up to me. Today Lupita ran to me and Mariana cried and held onto me when I was leaving. The baby kept me running today and we just read a couple of books again today and I spilled water on the desks for them to splash in. We washed our hands a lot to encourage hiegene. They are very dirty kids so if I can at least teach them at daycare to wash their hands and face that'll make me feel good. They all seem to have the same runny nose and some have coughs. So this is a good step for them. Mostly we just run up and down the slide and sing. But it's fun and I am happy. More information on the girls home to follow!

Bumpy Rides and Personal Space

Like the pictures have shown we live in a nice busy town, pretty quiet and with cobblestone streets. It is a big 'village' yet we can walk to most places like grocery stores and restaurants but occasionally you need to take a bus. We take a bus to wal-mart and church.

There are 2 kinds of buses and both cost little to nothing, 2-3 pesos. 13.10 pesos/$1, today anyways. Electric buses that are connected to a wire hanging above and they have to stay in the bus lane which minimizes the craziness. The bus drivers are all different, some crazy and some smooth drivers. There are bus stops for the electric buses and the regular buses will stop there too but they will stop anywhere if you just throw out your hand. When you get on you pay your coins and sit down, if there's a seat. If not, you stand and hope the driver is good with his shifting and stopping. You stand holding a bar above your head with your waist right in someones face trying to hold on tight. Last week we were standing belly to belly with other travelers as the bus was packed above capacity and the driver slammed on his breaks. You just about fall over. My shoulder, one particular time, was pulled in an uncomfortable direction because the bus driver slammed on the breaks. I've learn to hold onto the back of the seats rather than the bar above my head for the protection of my shoulders. Another trip we were standing squished to the front of the bus and the back of my knee was literally on the stick shift and there were 4 people between me and a Man standing on the last step with the front door open because it couldn't close and he was just holding on tight through the bumps and everything. It made me nervous when we turned left on the highway and traffic was coming and he was all exposed to the traffic. Men will give up their seats to elderly or women with children. But if I'm without Sally it's maybe 50% of the time they'll give up their seat for me. If you get on a bus and there is a window seat open the person sitting on the isle just moves their legs for you to just 'climb' over. Maybe for fear of losing their seat? We are used to traveling via bus as we live very close to two main busy roads and take it a few times a week. You have to learn the destinations so you don't get on a wrong one and end up lost. Doug got on a bus a couple of weeks ago that turned halfway to his destination and thought, ''Hmm, this could be interesting!'' I later got on the same bus and called him at work to see where his ended up because I think I made the same mistake. It took us just to the next stop down on the Metro system. No big deal.

OH! Let's talk about the Metro system! These people are crazy when it comes to getting on the train. They don't care about capacity. If a train pulls up to the platform and is full, the doors will open and maybe 2 people push their way out, 5 people will push their way in like they are gunna fit if they just suck it in! I wasn't about ready to push into that love fest so we waited for the next train. That one too, packed! So the third one to come was packed and Doug was like let's go! We pushed and then like 7 people pushed behind us and we were in there so tight that I could feel the short chubby guy's heart beat next to me against my arm that was protecting my chest from his face. Then I was so uncomfortable, hot and out of breath in the human heater of a train that I turned around... bad idea. I then felt that his lower belly region was now up under my butt, moving forward as the train sped through tunnel bumping and swaying. SO socially and physically uncomfortable and violating. I just kept looking up at Doug mouthing ''I am being violated right now. I don't like this. I really don't like this.'' Luckily shortly there after a seat became available and I was able to sit down and have my own space with my butt firmly placed on a seat. Sigh. Oh it's bringing back bad feelings. I think that's enough for today. All I know is I'm not traveling from that platform during morning rush hour again, if I can help it.

Am I really safe? Or is it a false feeling?

Since we moved to Mexico City I have been cautious as one should be, I've opened the taxi doors from the inside to check that I can in fact escape if need be. I've held my bags close and in front of me. I've held Sally's hand and been careful about where we walk and who we walk near. I'm just being safe. I've prayed a lot and have had people praying for us. We, like I said in previous posts, feel very safe and blessed in the location where we are housed. Although, today we got a little shaken. Or to correct, I got a little shaken. We took our usual route up to Wal-mart for groceries and a new computer for Doug as his hard drive went out last night. :( Just as we perchased the new expensive necessity we walked out into the parking lot where someone was calling hey! Do you speak English. He had kind of a crazy weird accent and I didn't know if he was a joke or what. But he fast walked towards us and was slightly out of breath and nervously speaking. He aparently is a student studying in the state of Morelos (where Doug will be researching). He was from Austin Texas and was in Mexico to learn spanish and was just coming into Mexico City for some reason. So along with his story he tells us he had just been robbed! He took a taxi from a shady Metro/Bus stop and the Taxi cabi had him put all of his belongings, a backpack of sorts, in the trunk and then put him in the back seat. Well, when they got to his stop (which I'm guessing was near or at wal-mart) the guy opened the door for him to get out, he got out and then got back in and he drove away with the kids clothes, camera and everything that was in his backpack in the trunk! So rediculous. So he asked us for some pesos which we had little of after our big purchases. We did give him what we had left but he said, "give me your email, I'll get you your money back as soon as I can call my dad." We weren't really ready to give out our info to this kid so we just said keep it. Bummer. All of this right infront of our nose, in a company cab car we've taken lots of times. I guess it pays to travel with the two of us, and always keep our valuables on our lap. But I do believe that the holy spirit travels with us too and he is protecting us and we are so thankful for that.

Into the mexican swing of things

Her classroom at her new school.

She is the one in the bright pink socks and different dress.

Thinking about eating the grasshopper

We have been taking it easy. Learning our bus and subway system. Going to markets and finding the cheapest and exploring our village. We love it here. Doug says this is his favorite place he's ever lived. It's proving to be one of my favorites too although I'm easy to please. I love our house and it's location. We just learned yesterday that we live across the street from a doctor's office, which is something we needed for Sally. She has to have a preschool physical and we've had a hard time making an appointment at the clinic we found last week. When I asked how much it would cost the lady doctor said, 'When she is sick and you bring her here, then you can pay me for that. You don't have to pay for this.' :)Very sweet neighbor. She speaks English too. We have been taking the bus west on the busy road that we live near to go to wal-mart at least 3 times a week. I am not a big wal-mart supporter, but now that we're here and are living on little-to-no money, it's almost do or die of starvation. Sally's school supply list was expensive too so wal-mart helped us safe a lot. We are still waiting for her uniform to come. That we had to order from the school. It's really a whole wardrobe. Dress, sweater, white polo, white t-shirt, jogging pants, shorts and jacket and art apron. I decided to take her to the gym just down the street 2 weeks ago to check out their baby ballet program and we did a trial class which sally LOVED. She'll get that uniform on Saturday. All of this with money we don't really have but she's so sweet and we needed to find friends too so I think it's worth it. The city we just moved here from in Maryland, ballet cost $30-$40 per lesson. Here it's $7.50! The uniform was like $50 for everything. Anyways, I don't want to bore you with money, it's just amazing how much cheaper things are here. These are people who live in a world of thousands or hundreds, where in the US we are more in the tens to hundreds for daily items. For instance, our milk here cost 47 pesos, which is like $3.90. So they are used to seeing big numbers. Like a car is over a million pesos. To me I'm like Jeeesh that's a lot. But they are used to it. Doug did start working more this week. He had a conference on Monday and Tuesday all day and Sally has school from 8-230, so I've clean our little house and gone to the grocery store. We don't have internet yet so I'm just hanging out until I get my reference letter from one of Doug's co-workers and then I have to wait for word back from the orphanage. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I really need to get better at spanish. I practiced a little on Monday with the cleaning lady that cleans our common areas. She doesn't speak English so I have to really speak spanish. None of this spanglish that I've been practicing. lol. We had some of the other scholars come down to Coyoacan on Saturday. We walked in the plaza and went out to lunch. It was fun. While we were eating a woman selling fried grasshoppers walked by calling out 'grasshoppers' in spanish. So I asked Sally if she wanted to try one. She was leary at first but then she tried one after our friend Levi Bridges (check out his amazing blog) tried one. She liked them! They were lime flavored and fried. She ate about 10 of them. I tried a teeeny weeeeny bite but the thought of eating it got the best of me. I couldn't eat the whole thing. Sally saw that mine had eyes and said, "Mmm, yours has eyes, yummy!" Then ate it. lol. We ventured to church on Sunday by ourselves on the bus. It was a quick ride, we did fine. After church we went to the park nearby with fair rides and a huge kid park. It was really warm and sunny. We are getting to know our surroundings and find our way. It's a nice village and we are happy. Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers for safety.

...Hello Blessings

We left MN Tuesday morning. The plane rides were quick and Sally is a wonderful traveler. She had a great attitude and watched Brave on the second flight to distract her for a while. Doug had a migraine and was sick on the airplane so I needed Sally to be distracted since I was the one keeping her still. We arrived around 3pm and got all our bags this time. All 4 suitcases. Phew. Good thing for those carts. Our Taxi took us to our Hotel, Holiday Inn Coyoacan. So nice, just like America. Then after a quick nap we got a taxi to take us to 2 apartments. The first one had a perfect location, quiet, children everywhere playing soccer in the ally and a little 6 year old neighbor girl who literally screamed 'mama! Una niña!' Mama a girl a girl! The house had 2 rooms, no laundry, no rugs, tile floors, small courtyard. It was nice. But the second one was amazing! It was the same price, newly rennovated, looks like ikea, seriously. And it's safe; Dead bolted street door, then deadbolted front door that is only to be opened with a key, not a lever. So sally can't get out, open it or sleepwalk out of it. (She doesn't sleepwalk but as you can imagine I've come up with scenarios in my head of ways that I could lose my daughter in Mexico). The house has 2 bedrooms. 2 bathrooms, outdoor laundry room, back porch so I can grow vegetables and the landlord is a christian. We told him we wanted it right away and moved in the next day. Rolando (the landlord) brought Doug around the town to show him where things are and Doug asked him about churches. He said he'd bring us to his churches. Which he did. The first was a conservative baptist church with all of those songs we learn in my hymnal growing up. And the second was a mega church with songs that Doug knew from living in Argentina. Both were great experiences for us and Sally. The kids program was bigger and more organized at the mega church but both were worth it. We also have found a school for Sally and today was her first day. It's right around the corner from our house and she will be there from 8 to 230 everyday! I don't know what I'm going to do with all of my free mommy time. I miss her already. The school is expensive but it's close to home and safe. So it's worth going into some debt. I just can't believe it's such a long day for such a little one. The first week on the way home from the church our landlord took us around our town and drove past an orphanage (he didn't know I was looking) and it happens to be right down the same street that we live on. It's about 8 blocks but hey, it's closer than from MN. Yay! I'm excited to go there and apply to volunteer. Doug will walk with me tomorrow I hope. Blessings upon blessings. And as I wrote on my mom's fb last week, "all of the prayers that you people are praying are being answered exactly as we need, exactly. Thank you!" We have found a safe neighborhood, a nice house, a safe school for sally, a place with a garden I can grow to save money, internet cafe and grocery right around the corner... etc. God is good, always was, always will be. To him be the glory and praise.