Mexico

Sometimes cultural differences come in the strangest places.  At school, for example, I have discovered that there are two things that I’ve done that have shocked my teachers.  I bet you’d never guess what freaky things I did – and I did them frequently…

1. Ice in my water  I bring food to school and carry it around in my backpack all day.  To keep it all cool and fresh, I would freeze some water in my water bottle, and then fill it up with water.  So my food and water kept nice and cool all day.

Now I don’t always have a lot of ice in my water or pop.  I’ve learned that lots of ice is actually an American (USA) thing (now I know why they notoriously fill your cup with ice at McDonalds!).  But here in Mexico the ice in the drink is even more rare – people think that it’s bad for you to have water that cold.  So it has freaked out my teachers when they see all this ice in my water.

2. Carrots and celery  Quite often I bring some chopped up veggies to school – carrots, celery, green peppers, tomatoes … whatever we happen to have in our fridge.  You would not believe how it shocked my teachers when I pulled out the veggies and started munching on rabbit food.  Healthy?  Sure.  But apparently it’s very strange to eat raw vegetables by themselves.  Who knew?

Now you know.

Police, the military, and the drug organizations in Mexico continue to be in an all-out war, another reason to pray for Mexico.

As I mentioned back in January, the violence in Mexico prompted the CBC to include Mexico on its top 5 world hot-spots for conflict.  At the end of last year, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent 7000 troops into the state of Michoacan, and in January he sent another 3000 into Tijuana.  It’s been estimated that there have been 800-1000 deaths from the violence this year alone.

This week two senior anti-drug officers were murdered (one in Mexico City and another in Tijuana).  Yesterday armed gunmen captured police right out of their cars and four officers were killed, three kidnapped.  They were freed after a gun battle.

In the northern state of Coahuila, the state’s chief anti-kidnapping investigator was himself kidnapped, and is still missing.

But the government has had its successes too, having detained hundreds of gunmen and having burned millions of dollars worth of illegal marijuana plants.  Recently police in Mexico City made what could be the biggest seizure of drug cash ever worldwide – US$207 million.

I don’t write this because we personally fear for our safety.  The major hot spots are far from where we live.  However, this is a major part of understanding where Mexico is at today, and why we continue to ask you to pray for the people of Mexico.  These are massive challenges very much on the hearts and minds of people here.

I wasn’t even going to mention the photo shoot that took place this past Sunday in the downtown square of Mexico City this past Sunday.

However, I just love Dennis Poulette’s comments about it on Tuesday. First, read what he wrote about the photo shoot itself, then read his post about the photographer’s dubious comments.

Dennis is spot-on, except it’s not just the streets of downtown, it seems like it’s just about everywhere – every street, every store, every other billboard, the backs of buses. And let me tell you, it’s not exactly safe to walk (or drive!) around with your eyes closed either!