Mexico

I was on my way down our hill to do some errands.  I decided to stop at the window and mirror shop on my way down.

The shop was dark and dirty, with pinups and pictures of saints on the walls.  Two guys came out to look at the remains of my driver-side mirror.  (I had gracefully smashed it on a lamp post in front of a very appreciative audience at a local café)  One of them began picking the pieces of broken mirror off, while the other measured and cut a new mirror to glue in its place.  They were done in a very few minutes, and told me it would cost MX$50 (about $4.65 in Canadian or US dollars).

Now being on my way down the hill, I had a limited amount of money and change.  I had a MX$200 bill, and handed it to him, but I could see he was about to travel up and down the street searching for change for me.  "Just a minute," I said quickly, and I began raiding my pockets and van for change.  I found $49.50, and offered it to him apologetically.  He laughed – "50 cents!" he said, and that was that.  Then I headed on the rest of my errands.

Suddenly I realized what a precarious position I was in.

I had no change.

You have to understand, in Mexico, you must have coins on you at all time.  Even in the house I always have coins on me.  After all, I might need to tip the garbage man.  If I’m out and about, I need to give tips to the man at the gas station, the kid who bags my groceries, the guy who helps me back out of the parking space.

There’s a joke here in Mexico – What’s the difference between a Canadian and a canoe?  Answer:  A canoe tips!

Well, I don’t want to be part of the joke.  I may be more careful with my money than your average American (US), but really, I do tip.

I needed gas, that was all there was to it.  As the attendant filled my tank, beads of sweat began forming on my forehead.  How was I going to tip him?  Suddenly, I looked at the numbers on the gas tank and called out – "That’s enough!  Thanks!"

Phew – MX$395.  I gave him MX$400 and told him to keep the change.  Not a tip he’d tell his family about that night, but at least it was something.

I went to the bank machine next to withdraw some money (we do almost everything with cash here), but of course that didn’t solve my change problem.  But finally, after paying my water bill at the water place I got a bit of change.  When I got my groceries bagged at MEGA, I was actually able to casually give the "bagger" a normal tip.

Please, don’t ever let me get caught without an ample supply of coins again.  Next time I’ll wait for the mirror-guy to canvas the street for change.  I’m not in that much of a hurry.  This is Mexico.

I’ve been speaking Spanish a lot this week. I guess if you’re going to have an excuse for not studying Spanish, that’s a good one! I even got to watch a fight in Spanish, so I saw how that’s done.

Ok, I generally speak Spanish a lot, but this week was unusual. We had our landlord and his son over quite a bit this week, and a number of workmen (organized by our landlord). Some of the work involved the neighbour out back, so we met him (it’s a newly built house, so they just moved in). Some of the work involved the people in the company to one side of us, so we talked to them. Some of it even involved the gardener on the other side.

Repairs were being done to our front gate. Two men came to do that. They were obviously good at their job, but they did run into some difficulties at one point, and ended up being here a day or two longer than expected. And they were a couple hours late the first day, which made the other workmen look good.

The others were there with a truck that carried a huge tank. They were supposed to empty out our sewage tanks, which are under the ground in our garden (alas! Our poor garden. We dug it all up.). This procedure actually started last week.

We talked all about the size of their tank, and the size of our underground tanks, and all that. But when our landlord’s son took a look, he thought their tank looked a lot smaller than they had said.

“If you don’t believe me”, said the sewage man, “measure it yourself!”

He didn’t realize he was talking to a student who was studying to be an engineer. A few minutes later he was presented with a paper full of calculations proving that the tank was no where near as large as he had claimed.

That’s when I got to see the fight in Spanish.

If you had been in the area, you would have heard it too. Everyone in the street around was involved.

For the first part of this week we tried to get another group of sewage-emptiers to do the job. After a great deal of patching up tubes, dropping things by mistake into the sewage tank (to remain there for all time), and two or three visits (they had to leave to empty the tank), and discussion, we have two more or less empty sewage tanks. Good for two or three years or so, I understand.

Meanwhile our landlord was bargaining with the neighbours about how to re-route a tube from our roof, which carries the water down after the rain. He needed to work on three properties to accomplish that.

And one thing about having our landlord around – if he’s not busy with something else, he finds something to fix. One block of our sidewalk no longer wobbles, and after several hours a lot of the growth of various plants has been hacked back and cleaned up.

We talked about screws, measurements, Calgary, how to answer the phone, music groups, presidents of the United States, and sewage systems. Business practices, ways of praying, work ethics in Mexico, how they talk faster up north, and planting seeds. And around here you spend a lot of time watching the workmen. I helped quite a bit too. But I didn’t get paid anything.

Thursday night I got together with some friends for prayer and Bible study. And today we split up – Nathanael and Shari went to a birthday party down the street (a Superman party), and Hannah and I went to a birthday party just out of town (a horse party. Sadly, they didn’t let the adults ride.).

But after all, I do need to study too. Maybe then I’ll have something new to say! Here’s hoping that we’ll have a more “normal” schedule next week, and I’ll be able to catch up on the study. But I’ll be talking too. I’m a little sick, so I’ll probably be off to the doctor, practising my medical terminology. ¡Qué divertido!