Mexico

3 May 2008

Finding direction? A sign…

Ok, so we’re driving on unfamiliar roads in central Mexico. We think we’re supposed to turn somewhere around here, but we’re not sure where. No, I think we missed it – let’s go back and try again.

There are highways and streets heading in every direction, winding around in unpredictable patterns. There’s construction going on here, traffic everywhere – where is that street? Could that be it, or did they change how the access lane works?

It should be highway 115 – Mexico Libre (the free highway, as opposed to the toll road). Is this it? Then we see this mess of signs:

Well… if you don’t know, neither do I.

23 April 2008

Doing our kids’ homework

Jim Family, Mexico 4

Don’t worry – we don’t really do our kids’ homework. They do their own. But there are times that we feel like we have more homework from their school than they do!

Oh yes, you know that we’re finishing up language studies, taking trips as we decide where to move to, we’re getting ready to move to Mexico City (Lord willing in a few weeks), and all kinds of minor stuff like that. But we’re also being kept busy by surprise tasks that Hannah and Nathanael bring home from Colegio del Bosque from time to time. Sometime there’s a day notice, sometimes even a week. (You may recall one or two of our earlier experiences with the school – read here about Kids at school and vine sheets)

Well, the circular we got in March did give us more notice than that, at least in one case. Around the same time Hannah and Nathanael brought home two different letters about costumes.

There was the spring party, coming up quick, and they were supposed to both come as something "springy", and have decorated Easter baskets. Oh, and chocolate eggs. And cascarones.

We didn’t have baskets (never mind decorated ones), costumes, or anything else, so off to the market I went. We got baskets, decorated them, made costumes (Shari’s handiwork), got chocolate eggs and cascarones.

But about the same time we got the notice about Mother’s Day (10th of May). The children would be practising for a special program. And they needed more costumes.

Ready for this?

For Mother’s Day, Hannah needs a red satin dress, made to exact specifications, and certain shoes. Nathanael will be dressed up as a Greek, with a toga, gold sandals, a gold belt, and a laurel crown (with laurel leaves) on his head.

Shari wasn’t sure she was reading this right – she went and talked to the teacher. "Oh yes, this will be the easiest costume ever!" the teacher exclaimed, referring to the toga. As if in previous years they had forced the poor mothers to create costumes far more complicated. For Mother’s Day.

So this week we’re still working on getting these elaborate costumes ready for next month. Meanwhile, you guessed it – more "circulars" came home.

(Rough translation from the Spanish) This is to inform you that we’ll be having a Recyclable Toy Contest, and so you need to bring a toy on Wednesday the 23rd of April, with the following characteristics: (instructions followed).

On the same day, Hannah got special instructions to draw a huge picture of the family on bristol board (which, of course, we had to go buy because we didn’t have any on hand).

So, picture out of the way we decided on and created two recyclable toys, one for each kid (this time they helped us – *phew*).

Nathanael and his Bullroar;
Hannah plays her tin-can bass

Nathanael and I made a Bullroar, a traditional Australian instrument. Hannah and I made a tin-can bass. There they are in the picture.

Tomorrow night Hannah and Mom will go out to work on the red dress with another family from the school.

What other circulars will be coming home, and what new and wild things will they have us buy/find/create? That’s just a taste of the last month or so. It’s been an interesting year as a whole, and we’ve learnt a lot! Don’t get me wrong – it’s an excellent school, and we’ll be sorry to leave it. (Actually, it’s in its last year – no one will be able to go next year).

Anyway, I’d better run. Nathanael got a note along with his homework today that we’re supposed to bring some cooked [some word in Spanish we don’t understand] for his cooking class on Friday.

What? Nathanael has a cooking class?

20 April 2008

Bugs in Cuernavaca

Jim Mexico 0

I haven’t written a lot about bugs since we arrived in Cuernavaca, but the time has come. But I have taken some pictures of a few of the many-legged friends that we’ve made since moving here. These aren’t necessarily the most common bugs, but simply a few I’ve tried to photograph.

Of course, it’s not easy to take pictures of bugs with a cheap camera (actually, we got our camera for free – who’s complaining?), so the photos aren’t usually great quality. A few I didn’t bother to upload at all.

Some bugs we have here are familiar in Canada too… such as potato bugs (woodlice), crickets, centipedes, snails and ants. Of course, some of the ants here are supersized. There’s grasshoppers, spiders and moths. Some may be in Canada too, but were new to me.

One well known blight of Cuernavaca is the scorpion. There are various kinds, some more venomous than others, and we’ve seen more than one kind in our house. Here’s one fellow, and you can get an idea how big he is as compared to the ant (this is an average-sized ant, not a super-sized one).

Thankfully, we’ve only seen a few of these in our house.

In our last newsletter, I wrote a little about our adventures with scorpions and black widow spiders.

At one point we had quite a few black widows in our yard (and some in our house!) (when was that? Oh yes, shortly before we called the exterminator!). We’re thankful to the Lord that so far our kids were never stung or bitten, in spite of the fact that they play all over that yard quite a bit.

I got quite a few pictures of the black widows, but this one is my favourite. You can see the tell-tale red "hourglass" on her belly. They also usually have red on top. We’ve gotten so we’re better able to recognize their webs, so that helps a lot.

And of course you won’t forget the vinagrillo that I came across – I haven’t seen many more of those.

Don’t get the impression that we’ve been constantly overrun by bugs. Some of these we only saw once or twice. But the safer bugs have provided hours of entertainment! 😉 And if you wear your shoes and don’t stick your hand in dark corners, you’ll probably be fine.

Anyway, check out our little Bugs of Cuernavaca album. If you think you know what one is, leave a comment!

Edit: Oops! Sorry, the photo album was password protected. It should be working now – try again!

And here’s just one more for the blog – this bug appears to be admiring himself in the bug-mirror…

16 April 2008

Return to La Iglesia BÃblica de Tlalpan

Jim Mexico, Ministry glimpses 0

I’m not exactly sure why it took us so long, but this past Sunday we went to la Iglesia Bíblica de Tlalpan (Tlalpan Bible Church) in Mexico City.

Actually, we sang a duet in the church. It was pretty strange being introduced as people who had served in the church 15 years ago. Yes, it was almost exactly 14 years ago that we last attended the church. You can read what I wrote about a month later here. It was April 1994 when our music and drama team did a special musical for Holy Week in the church. We were ending a 5 month visit to Mexico, and Tlalpan was our home church.

There aren’t too many people in the church that were there 14 years ago – a handful. That may be a good thing, because we sang one of the same songs we used then (not stuck in a rut, are we?).

Anyway, with my excellent memory there was very little I remembered about the church, neighbourhood, and what we did there. However, we enjoyed meeting some of the new people in the church. And we enjoyed a visit with our friends Antoñio and Becky Muñoz, and their cool daughter Jessica.

Antoñio and Becky were both single back in 1994 – Antoñio served in music worship at the church, and Becky was a missionary. Now they are married and Antoñio is the pastor – and they’re both still involved in music, as they should be.

We also spent some time with a family with CAM, Brock and Heather Hower. It was good to get to know them slightly better (there wasn’t much time!).

For all I’ve forgotten, I did remember the inside of the church, and it was surreal being back. And, of course, I can never forget the kindness of the people who were there then. We had a great (too short) visit with old and new friends – I hope we can visit again soon!

A street in Tlalpan (south Mexico City)
Photo courtesy of Gato Azul

10 April 2008

Metro Music

Jim Audio Blogs, Mexico, Podcasts 0

Hear what I heard on the Mexico City Metro this afternoon…

8 April 2008

Mostly about April travels

Jim Mexico, Ministry glimpses 4

This past Saturday we went to Puebla. Puebla is a huge city, very unlike either Cuernavaca or Mexico City. For one thing, they have a lot of very wide streets. That sounds great, except that the streets usually have no visible lanes (unless you squint), which means that the actual number of lanes will vary from lots of very skinny ones to… well, one car swerving all over the place.

We had a long-overdue visit with some Canadian friends of ours, the Chapples. Somehow it’s nice to stay in a house where there’s a toy snowmobile lying around. (Note: sometimes I explain people’s nationality by their passport, sometimes by where they grew up, sometimes where they live … often those are all different things! And probably are in this case.)

The Chapples were very hospitable and we heard a little about what’s going on in Puebla, and the work they’ve been involved in in various parts of Mexico (Bible training is a big part of that right now). We also got to know their kids, who are bigger than they were (actually, the youngest one was completely new to us!).

On Sunday morning we had an interesting experience attending an "International Church" – in this case, the service was in English and Spanish. It’s strange hearing a sermon in English, but it was translated so we caught most of it. 😉 Actually, the pastor was from southern Ontario.

Then we went and hung out with Americans, Mexicans, Costa Ricans, and so on, at the farewell party for our field director and his wife, Jim and Cheryl Eberline. Jim and Cheryl have been such an encouragement and help in the little time we’ve known them – they will be missed (and after the party they know it for sure)! They’re heading to Uruguay in a few months’ time.

We cam home yesterday.

Tomorrow, I’m going to be going to Ixtapaluca (one of two possible places we may be moving to, the other being Texcoco) to hang out with the Fry family to see what’s going on there. We’ll be working with the Frys if we’re in that area. Lord willing we’ll be able to get our families together again soon, and soon after we’ll be deciding where we’re moving to. It’s always great to see the Frys!

On Saturday we’re going into Mexico City to see our friends AntoÃ±io and Becky, and their daughter. We might even sing at their worship service on Sunday. (The new song? Mmmmm… let’s not rush that one!) We don’t get together with their family enough, but we’re students and he’s a pastor… not exactly multitudes of free time.

There are lots of other non-travel related things going on. I haven’t told you about the costumes we’re supposed to come up with for Hannah and Nathanael’s school for Mother’s Day (May 10)… that is a good part time job in itself. And the school explained the last detail of what they’re supposed to wear – all we have to do is actually make the costumes (or have someone make them?)!

That’s just a glimpse into what’s going on this month. The main thing is – we keep studying, and talking, and listening, and reading, and writing, and hoping that soon our Spanish will be good enough for the school and our leaders so that we can actually get ready to move. How do you say move in Spanish again?

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