Another Flood, Another Doctor…

I know, three posts in one day – somebody stop me!  😉

I just thought I’d better give you another update on a few things here, especially if you’ve been checking out what we’ve been saying on Twitter and Facebook and all that.

Yes, there has been another Chalco Flood.  The good news is that the highway is already open, and there were no fatalities, and far fewer homes were flooded.

The bad news… well, there was another flood!  The canal burst open… again… and dirty sewage water swept into the city… again.  An estimated 500 families have been affected by the flood.  No doubt many personal belongings were lost and ruined, among families that simply can’t afford the loss.

The highway near Chalco earlier this afternoon.  There was a lot of cleanup going on.  You can see the white stuff they use to help dry things up.  Helicopters, police cars and other emergency vehicles where there – something we hardly saw for the first few days last year…
You need to realize that this flood isn’t … shouldn’t be … an annual event.  When the flood hit last year (a disaster, though largely ignored by the media), it hadn’t happened for 10 years.  It was the result of a number of unusual factors, including several days of rain in the middle of dry season.

After life got back to normal (and many promises were made by the government), there was no reason to think something like this would happen again so soon.

Thankfully, this wasn’t the disaster it was last year.  Still, it’s no small matter to families who have had their houses flooded with filthy water.

There was actually some flooding – though not sewage water – in Ixtapaluca.  Thankfully, not where we are.  Although our house leaked in a few interesting places.

In other news – I just got back from another doctor appointment.  It was a medical test.  Very entertaining.  Somewhat painful at times.  And the results should be available soon.  I’m doing all right health-wise – better – but the tests need to continue for a little bit.  I have at least two more appointments with specialists, and I may request some more tests because I think we may be looking in the wrong direction.

So far, all the doctors can tell me is that I’m in excellent health.

However, because of the test I wasn’t able to eat for severl hours today – which means migraine attack – so I have been and am in a lot of pain.  And hoping I’ll be able to get some sleep and get the attack over with.

For those of you wondering about Nathanael, he is doing very well health-wise.  We’re very thankful for that!

And now – Mexico stats for you.  If you’ve been checking out Twitter and Facebook, you might have caught these interesting tidbits, but I’ll share them again just in case.  First, according to Twitter statistics, we’re just really happy here in Mexico (or maybe we complain less?) beating out Canada and the United States and almost every other country in the world.

Another study confirms that Mexicans work very hard.  In a survey of 29 industrialized countries, Mexicans work the longest days.  This is no surprise to us – many Mexicans hold 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet.

They’re also busy at home – averaging more than 3 hours a day doing housework (and when do Mexicans sleep, may I ask??).

A while ago I heard that those in Mexico City were Mexico’s worst work-a-holics.  So these stats don’t surprise me at all.  Still, interesting to hear them confirmed.

We’re going to live up to the cultural expectation by working hard over the two week spring break time, which started today.  Hannah has school work that needs to be done for when school starts up again, plus she’s catching up on English work.  Nathanael is continuing school as usual, since he’s been getting behind with all these doctor’s appointments and things.  And we’re trying to help the kids and get our own work done.  But for now – I need some sleep!

I’ll leave you on a positive note – another shot of a jacaranda tree in bloom, in the neighbourhood near Hannah’s school, pictured on the left.  For a bigger and better view, click the picture to see it in the Photo Gallery (click the photo in the gallery to see the full-resolution version).