Mexico City
A New View of Ixtapaluca
On the 17th and 18th of January we had a visit. Some new friends from Christ Chapel Bible Church (Fort Worth, Texas, USA) came down along with our mission‘s director, to investigate how they could be involved in the things God is doing in Mexico.
This gave us an excellent excuse to go out for tacos. Oh, and also to show them around Ixtapaluca! And what a beautiful clear day it was.
We went up to the local ancient ruins, looked out over the thousands of houses in the town and many housing developments. We visited Jesús María, the new house we’re renting there, and of course the building where Sendero de Vida (our church) meets here close to where we live.
So I put together this brief video with some views of the area that you may not have seen before. It was a windy day, so there was a lot of wind noise, but you can still hear some of what our pastor Martín and Rod Fry had to say about the area and ministry here.
Cotton Candy (video)
Just a quick video clip that I took back on the 18 of this month. It was recess time, and the Cotton Candy Man was ready to go. And being a windy day, it was more fun than usual.
(It was one of our friends, a boy named Olaf, who first got the enterprising idea of using a hula hoop, though that’s not him in the video)
Visit Ixtapaluca (but please, don’t bother getting up)
All right, so of course I want you to actually really visit us in person. But last month I made an amazing discovery – Google Street View has come to Ixtapaluca!
If you’ve never tried Street View, it works like this. You can go on to a map, then you can actually go down to street level and see what you would see if you were driving down the street. You can look around, up, down – all around. You can go back the other way, forward – the ability to move yourself and look around really does make you almost feel like you’re there.
What you’re seeing are a collection of special photos taken by Google employees. So they’re not right up to date, but it looks like the ones of Ixtapaluca right now were taken sometime this past summer.
So you can see the places we drive and walk every day, see the shops, the cars, the bicycle taxis – even people about their business. You can even zoom in and get a closer look of things. Amazing!
An image of Ixtapaluca from Street View.
I spy a bicycle taxi, combi taxis, election signs…
Now, every street isn’t on there – partly because there are so many closed communities (ie gated). But still, there’s a lot you can see.
And surprisingly, you can – now, don’t tell anyone – but you can actually see our house. Now I won’t tell you where it is here in public, but if you call or send me a note (and if I know you!) I might just spill the beans.
Meanwhile, go here to see Ixtapaluca. Take the little orange-ish man on the left side, and drag him on to one of the main streets. Give it a moment, and it will show with a blue outline all the streets with Street View. Drop the man down in the place you want to start exploring. More details on using Street View can be seen in the video below.
I’ll give you one clue – the street named Cuauhtémoc is what we drive down each day to take our kids to school.
I just tried it. I found a mailman on a motorcycle – cool. 😉 Hey, there’s a store we shop at all the time! Oops… looks like that guy is having car trouble.
Oh, sorry – I’ll let you go explore for yourself! Use full screen – looks great.
Google video explaining Street View
More of a main street in Ixtapaluca
Ontario Week: Canada is … different
Welcome to "Ontario Week"! This week I’m going to put up a bunch of posts and videos with some random things I wanted to mention related to Ontario, Canada, and our trip. Just some loose ends – things I didn’t have a chance to mention or post while we were on the road! Here’s part 1…
 A cottager flies the Ontario flag |
Before we went on our trip to Ontario I wondered out loud just how we were doing preparing for all the cultural differences we would encounter in Canada.
Well, we didn’t do too bad with some of the ones we mentioned. I’m not sure Nathanael ever did quite get into the groove of taking his shoes off in the house, though.
When were crossing the border into Canada, we were shuffled into a waiting room with some other people while our van was searched. In the room was something the kids didn’t even notice, because they didn’t know what it was. When I pointed it out to them, and explained how it worked, they went NUTS … they were so excited, we had to explain to the other people waiting that our children just didn’t have any experience with … water fountains.
Or then there was the time when we told Hannah to wait on the porch, and she said,"What’s a porch?"
Yeah, not a lot of porches here in Mexico City. Or garages (in Canada, they can park their cars inside!). And basements needed to be explained several times.
Someone asked us what was hardest to get used to. Shari said one thing was the choices we have in the store. Don’t get me wrong – we have lots of selection here in Mexico. Often I’m standing in an isle bewildered about what to choose. No complaints.
But after 2.5 years away from Canada, there are whole new types of products and we don’t even know what they are. How do people even keep up with all these things?!
I went to the store one day and discovered that now I need to have a specific kind of toothpaste for brushing at night. You mean I need to carry around two different kinds of toothpaste now??
And we took Hannah and Nathanael to Toys"R"Us one day. That was just … too much.
I also found it very interesting hearing about the struggles churches have in Ontario – church leaders, Christians – the challenges of reaching out in Ontario culture. It’s very different than what we deal with here in Mexico City (though of course many things are the same). It’s helpful to know more how to pray for our brothers and sisters in Ontario.
One more thing. One impression many Mexicans seem to have about Canada is that it’s tranquilo – that is, calm or tranquil. I always thought this was a bit of a misconception. I don’t anymore.
Sure, there’s some noise in Canadian streets. But in Canada, the houses are more sealed and sound-proof. There are no garbage collector bells. No people yelling out that there are tamales for sale. No gas men shouting out "GAS!" Usually you won’t hear announcements coming from loudspeakers on trucks and cars all hours of the day or night. Rarely are there fireworks and firecrackers in the street.
Don’t get me wrong – it usually doesn’t bother me here. But it is different. I’ve finally come to agree with my Mexican friends. It’s pretty tranquilo up there in Canada.
Remember Mexico – June 2009
You may or may not have noticed. Maybe I’m stating the obvious. But I just want to draw a little extra attention to it, just to remind you to pray.
Mexico has been having a hard time.
The people here, that is.
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Of course you’ve heard about the violence, drug wars, corruption. People are concerned, and sometimes it hits very close to home (it’s just recently hit very close to home here. I won’t go into details, but there are some friends of ours who could really use your prayers).
The economic crisis has hit Mexico hard. According to a recent survey, the number of unemployed people hit a record high in the first quarter of this year. The peso has dropped in value. It takes 13.4 pesos to buy a US dollar (and that’s actually an improvement), as opposed to 10.9 pesos when we first moved here in 2006. This too has hit people we know.
Just when people wondered how things could get worse, the A(H1N1) flu hit. Though now much worse in the US than it is in Mexico, the paranoia turned tourists away from the country and even exposed prejudice toward Mexicans themselves. More business left the country.
Though recent earthquakes felt in Mexico City may not have made your local news, in an area that still remembers the disastrous quake of 1985, they were enough to scare a lot of people. What next?
Mexico City has been having ongoing issues with water. It’s nothing new, but this rainy season the rain has been very sparse. Many families have gone without water in their houses for weeks on end.
And then a tragedy in Hermosillo has shaken the country still further. A fire in a day care has claimed the lives of 44 toddlers and infants. Many others are severely burned.
Can you imagine the impact on a community to lose that many children, and the ongoing impact of many more with serious injuries?
We have friends in Hermosillo and I’ve shared some of their posts in my shared items. If you missed the posts, read Day Care Fire, Update on Day Care Fire and then God works in such wonderful ways!
Next month a legislative mid-term election is coming up. As with most countries, you’ll hear outrage toward one party or another, and those who wonder whether to vote or not. In a country undergoing so much crisis, scepticism and anger seems to run especially high.
Add to this mix human rights issues, current heated debates over abortion … the list goes on and on. Many people are feeling the earth shake under them, and it’s not just earthquakes. Many don’t know where to turn.
Please. Remember Mexico. Pray for her people.