A Healthy Dose of Reality

I´ve lived here long enough that not much takes me by surprise anymore.

And then I´m flipping through my daughter´s homework and smacked up alongside the head with "Gee--we aren´t in Indiana anymore!"

Check out the illustration for a first grade test on life cycles:

Just in case you aren´t seeing what I saw, double-click on the picture.  Check out the top left corner.  

Yep, that´s a dead chicken.  

And not just a cartoon of a dead chicken--nope, that´s a photograph of a real, dead chicken.  (I just about wrote, "a real, live, dead chicken."  But that´s the point.  He is most certainly NOT alive.)  If I look close enough, I think I can see flies buzzing around it.  

Now, I´m not one to shy away from the realities of life.  Ever since Clara has been old enough to ask questions, she´s been well aware of where our food comes from.  A few years back, she was also fixated on the idea of death, or at least the realization that everything does come to an end, sooner or later.  

My sweet, little, six-year-old, whose head is filled with rainbows and puppies and glitter-filled hearts gets to stare at the grizzly remains of a chicken for her school work.  

Welcome to Mexico.  We don´t shy away from reality here.  

Death is part of the life cycle.  And well--this is what it looks like.  

However, being a sheltered midwesterner whose culture is generally in denial of the reality of death, the thoroughness of the diagram took my breath away a bit.   

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Name Yourself, Kid.

So, we´re letting the baby pick out his middle name.

How does he get to choose, you ask?  It´s fairly easy, thanks to the calendar of saints´ feast days.

Now, for those who aren´t Catholic, one might not be familiar with these beauties.  But every day of the year is commemorated to whichever officially cannonized saint died that day. So most days, there are a number of names to choose from.

This may sound kind of weird and off-the-deep-end, but it used to be a traditional way of naming children in Mexico, even as recently as the 1940s and ´50s.  I´m not making this up, as I have a number of friends and neighbors in their sixties and seventies and LOTS of these fine people have about 11 brothers and sisters.  Let´s face it, when you´re faced with naming more than five children, I´m willing to bet that it gets tricky to find (and agree) on decent names.

So let´s just rely on the Saints´ Day Calendar.

While completely unintentional, my other two children were born on their saints´ day, even though we picked out their names well in advance.  For instance, we picked out Joey´s name before we got married--five years before he was born.  And then he up and decided to be born on the day we chose for his middle name.

So now when he tells me he doesn´t like his middle name, I can retort back that he choose it, not me.
And that´s true.  Mostly.

Part of what convinced us to name Clara Clara was that our book of 10,000 baby names listed her due date (and birthday) as a Santa Clara Day.  However, now that I´ve been investigating on the internet, I can´t find a single Santa Clara for January 28th.  The closest I can find is an obscure St. Cannera--a hard-headed Irish broad whose story I think is a hoot (and reminds me of Clara, even though she´s not willing to admit it yet).

But a Santa Clara on January 28th?  If anyone knows anything about her, please let me know!

Since coincidence has worked so well for us in the past, and we can´t agree on a decent middle name for this guy, we´ll let
fate take over and Little Boy can pick his own name.  I was hoping he would have been born this past Saturday, so his middle name could be Antonio.

Apparently, he wasn´t so interested in that one.

My luck, he´ll decide that he´s comfortable until November 1st, and then decide to be born on All Saints´ Day.

Then we would be forced to be creative and make a decision.   Aargh.

The Things I Can Get Away With Here . . .

Clara´s homework the other day was for her to bring in some vowel flashcards.  No problem.

I cut the cardboard, wrote the vowels, and after a grand total of 5 minutes, we were set!

Then, I noticed the box that I cut the cardboard from.  I don´t know that I´d be able to send those letters with her to school if we lived in the US!

However, as we don´t, I didn´t think twice about it.

I Knew It Was a Great Idea!

Ten years ago, I worked at a children´s home.  A very large children´s home.  I helped take care of 25 first and second grade girls.  Now, for those of you who have also taken care of school-age children, lice is simply a fact of life.  Rather like chicken pox.

Except that we can get lice more than once.  That´s a real bummer.

Our girls were no exception to this fact of life.  And because they all lived together in close quarters (and we didn´t have great access to lice shampoo that year) everyone spent at least a couple of weeks out of the year with lice.

As I was the most mature and among the more patient of the women who took care of these girls, I was the designated lice-picker.

Surprisingly, though, the more I did it, the more I enjoyed it.  It was mindless work, but I could be seated fairly comfortably.  (Can´t say the same for my lice-infested counterpart, but . . . them´s the shakes.)  It was quiet work and no one was hanging on me or whining at me (unless it was the kid whose head I was picking at, but again . . . too bad for them!)   I actually looked forward to lice-picking hour.

And then it dawned on me--I could sell out my amazing nit-picking services!  If lice-infested kids aren´t allowed to go to school, how much time can working parents really take off to pick the lice out of their kids´ heads?  Would some even be willing to PAY me to do it?

Turns out, somebody beat me to that punch!

If you´ve got a lice-y kid in Saltillo, send them to Piki-Piki, downtown on Salazar, just south of the Alameda.

Notes on a Kid-Sized Guyabera

Sometime this year, my mother-in-law came back from Cancun with a beautiful, pint-sized guyabera shirt for Joey.  Gorgeous.  What to make the boy wear to Uncle Dan´s wedding?  Solved.

Guyaberas are traditional dress shirts for men from coastal areas and elsewhere in the Carribean.  I believe Raul Castro is seen wearing them often.  They´re not meant to be tucked in and made out of linen or cotton to make them extra cool.  Literally--not as in ¨cool¨--like I said, they´re worn in very hot and humid places.   They´re elaborately embroidered and tucked, a real work of art.   I was rather thrilled that Joey has the opportunity to look so dapper at such a young age. 

And apparently the child size 4 shirts are made every bit as authentically as the adult sizes.  When washing Joey´s, I was intrigued that the teeny-tiny pocket actually had a pocket sewn into it.  Not just a mock pocket, as is the case in so many toddler clothes.     

A very long, skinny pocket.  What the heck?  Why is this pocket so long and skinny? 

Of course.  For tucking one´s cigars into one´s guyabera. 

In a child´s size 4 guyabera. 

Can´t say it´s not authentic!

Just to prove how handsome he was in his cigarless guyabera.

Old Wives' Tales Taken Out of Culture

I've been meaning to confess this for awhile, so here goes:

My small children drink coffee.  *gasp*

In the US, we're fed on the myth that coffee is just for adults, that it will stunt kids' growth, they'll get all hyped up on the caffiene and won't be able to sleep, etc, etc.  All our predjudices about coffee are part of our culture, not entirely based in fact (execpt that the effects of caffiene are pretty well documented, I'll give you that).

When I worked at a chilren's home and new volunteers from the US would come and see the small children drinking coffee right before bed, they were all generally out of their minds concerned about this.  "I've got to put a stop to this!  Kids drinking coffee before bed!  Tsk!"

But trying to stand in the way of culture is like trying to stand in the way of a moving train.  One person, no matter how concerned, can no change someone else's culture.  Everyone does it.  Everyone goes to sleep at night.  The average Mexican is, indeed, usually shorter than the average American, but that's thanks to genetics, not the effects of early coffee consumption.

Clara and I spent a month with my mother-in-law when Clara was about a year and a half old.  My mother-in-law LOVES coffee.  She also has a collection of child-size mugs.  After a month with the abuela, Clara decided that she loved coffee, too.  (She got half coffee, half milk mini-mugfuls.)  At the time, I was more concerned about her sugar intake instead of her caffiene intake, and would give it to her without sugar.  She still thought it was a best thing ever.

And now that I'm more liberal with the sugar, she's still a sucker for coffee, anytime we make it.

The Boy, on the other hand, is against hot drinks of any form.

Ironically, or perhaps because of this early exposure to coffee, Mexicans in general don't have the same addiction to coffee that gringos do.  I could be mistaken, but the Mexicans I know best regard coffee as a nice treat (a daily treat, if you're my mother-in-law, but a treat nonetheless).  Starbucks and the Italian Coffee Company do abound here, but I can't say I've met any Mexicans who have the same dependence on coffee that so many gringos have.  That, "Oh-My-God-I-Can't-Function-Without-My Morning-Coffee" dependence.

You know what I'm talking about.

Witnessing these two cultural views to coffee, I think I'll stick to the safer, less addicting route, and give my children coffee early in life.  True, there's no gaurantee that their gringo side won't rear up and they will become addicts eventually.

But I'll take my chances.  

"Where Are You From?"

"Jill--you're not from Indiana!" 

What?  That's news to me. 

However, a few months ago, my father-in-law read in my passport that I was, indeed, born in Wisconsin, not Indiana.  To the Mexican psyche, one is from the place they were born.  So yes, if you were "accidentally" born in Florida because one of your parents was in grad school there and never stepped foot in the state after the age of six months, to your Mexican friends, you are a Floridian. 

 Mario got lucky in the fact that he was born within the official confines of Mexico City, as he likes to refer to himself as a chilango.  He spent the majority of his growing-up years 10 blocks from the line that officially divides the DF from the state of Mexico.  But, to his way of thinking, he was born on the "right" side of that line.    

I don't mind my newfound status as a Wisconsite.  All my extended family is from there,  and while I haven't lived there since the age of two, I've spent plenty of Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters and summers there, so Wisconsin and I do have a connection. 

But I'm a Hoosier, baby.  And that's all there is to that.

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On the opposite note, when in the US, I've been introduced to people as "my friend from Mexico". 

Woah, slow down, Sparky.  I live in Mexico.  I am not from Mexico, and it's clear that no matter how many years I'll spend there, I will NEVER be considered to be "from" Mexico.  Don't get me wrong--I love Mexico, and I sure hope I'm assimilating.  However, when I'm ninety years old, I will still get asked, "Where are you from?" 

It's clear (to Mexicans, at least) that I'm not "from" Mexico.

Word

Just learned my new favorite Spanglish word.

And this time I didn't make it up or learn it from another gringo--it's standard around here! I saw it on a billboard a few days after hearing it.

The other day, I walked past a table where someone was selling cupcakes. They asked me if I wanted a quequito. Of course, my English-driven brain heard "cake-ito".

But no, if you want a cupcake in northern Mexico, a quequito it is.

Yet another joy of living awfully close to the border!

You Know You've Lived in Mexico Too Long When . . .

I saw this ad on the side of my email inbox.











I immediately thought to myself, "that would make GREAT Independence Day dress for a little girl!"




Oh . . . right.




It's a Christmas dress.




Oops!

Goes Buzz in the Night

With the house being so stinkin' hot the later in the day that it gets, I'm finding myself spending a lot of time in the patio in the evenings. However, I'm always by myself, as the hubs refuses to join me, due to his hatred of mosquitoes.

I do understand his feelings. They're irritating. They put me a over the edge when they buzz in my ears. And he gets bit by them.

I don't.

Now, I used to be just like everyone else on the planet and the mosquitoes loved sucking my blood, and I'd swell and slap them and itch. But it's been twelve years since this has been a noticeable problem.

I first noticed this anomaly when I was a camp counselor in 2000. My girls were stuck inside the cabin on a rainy day and were passing the time by counting their mosquito bites.

"I've got 109!"

"I've got 73!"

I took a look at myself and found about 4. Why on earth were the girls being bitten to death but not me? Was it their sweet, young blood? At the ripe, old age of 21 I was no longer attractive to mosquitoes?

Upon further reflection, I decided that I had been cured from mosquitoes. And, while I'm not exactly sure why, I've got a pretty good idea.

Back when I was doing my study-abroad semester in Mexico in 1999, a friend and I decided to take off for a long weekend and visit Taxco. It was April, the height of the dry season, and we opened the windows wide in our hotel room to let in some refreshing, mountain breezes. The windows were open all day, and when we finally got ready for bed that night, we found that we had unwittingly invited just about every mosquito in the northern part of Guerrero in our room.

It was hands-down the most awful night of my life. I didn't sleep a wink. We got bit and buzzed and swollen within an inch of our lives.

However, since then, I can't say that mosquitoes have bothered me too much. Sometimes I see them on my arms and I kill them. They rarely leave a mark, and it's even more rare for those few mosquito bites to itch.

One sleepless night with a bazillion mosquitoes in exchange for a lifetime of being immune to mosquito bites?

I don't think I would have chosen it, but I'm sure glad it happened!

(Not sure what else may now be crawling around in my bloodstream, but let's just not think about that!)

Ewww . . . really?

The other day, I took my daughter, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law to the park so one of the four of us could play outside for the afternoon. It was a lovely day with the sun shining, a breeze blowing the tree branches, well-dressed kids teasing the turtles in the pond after their graduation ceremonies, and then . . .

"Could you spit on my daughter's foot, please?"

WHAT?!?

Clara was happily rocking away on her motorcycle, when a woman and her 12-year-old daughter came up to us. The daughter was clearly uncomfortable, as her mother explained that an ant had bitten her. Yep, that does sting. Then again, it may have been her mother's request that really made uncomfortable.

Being at the park, they were all out of ice, meat tenderizers, and other home remedies for cutting pain from stings. She had heard that pregnant women's spit could ease stings. And, when she mentioned this, I felt like I had heard this somewhere, too.

So I spit on the poor kid's foot.

I hope it helped even a little bit, because if she wasn't uncomfortable before, having her foot smeared with a stranger's spit could easily change the situation from uncomfortable to unbearable.

In my defense, though, I do remember a dentist of mine telling me that one's saliva gets slightly more acidic when pregnant, and he recommended rinsing my mouth out nightly with baking soda and water, to counter the effects of my more acidic saliva so it wouldn't attack my teeth. So maybe there is some truth in this, after all.

However, I still think the girl might have gotten more relief from sticking her foot in the turtle pond.

Who Am I Talking To?

Has this ever happened to you?

[telephone rings]

Me: Bueno? (That's how we answer the telephone in Mexico.)

Unfamiliar voice on other end: Si . . . con quien estoy hablando? (Who am I talking to?)

Me: [confused silence. After all, isn't that MY line?]


Wait a minute. You're calling MY house. Yet you're asking ME who I am?

I can't tell you how many times this has happened. Why would anyone pick up the phone without knowing who they're calling? Drives me crazy.

Or, my other favorite, when people call and then ask to know what phone number they're calling. Really? You just dialed it. What is your problem?

Patty told me that the other day someone like this called her at the store where she works. She answered very professionally, "Good afternoon, _________ store in Saltillo. How can I help you?" The caller then responded, "where am I calling?" She didn't tell me what she told the man, but I know she was thinking to herself, "Dude--I just told you. How thick can you be?"

These callers don't seem to be your average creep-o. Well, they are a bit creepy, but men, women, and children of all ages do this. WHY?

As mentioned above, this used to just baffle me into silence. Initially I was so taken aback that I would actually tell them who I was. Having been since warned that this could be a scam or a way of stalking my house to find out when to rob it, I've wised up and now refuse to give any personal information over the phone. (Good job, Jill . . . took you 30 years to figure that one out! Yikes.)

Now, the confused and innocent-sounding callers get a nice, "I'm sorry, but I can't give personal information over the phone." However, most, those who don't sound like confused versions of my grandma, get lashed back with, "If you don't know who I am, you shouldn't be calling my phone" in various stages of rudeness. And then I hang up.

Because really, who does that?

Home Remedies

My stomach got attacked with something the last couple of days, and it blew up into a serious problem last night. After I had downed the last and only Lomotil in the house (the best medicine ever for diarrhea), Paty and I scooted out to the OXXO to get some more.

But the OXXO was out of Lomotil. Time to panic!

Fortunately, Paty had two home remedies up her sleeve. First, she suggested drinking half a cup of lime juice with a teaspoon of sugar. I was willing, although I lamented what that might do to my tooth enamel. Then she suggested half a cup of Coke with the juice of half a lime. Still a dentist's nightmare, but it sounded a lot more palatable.

I tried the Coke and lime concoction twice and have had no further problems (knock on wood). It just may work.

Or, it may have been helped by that one Lomotil that I was able to get down.



Does anyone else have any other successful home remedies for this or other ailments? Knowing that this may have worked, I'm curious to know what else may be equally simple and equally successful.

Whee--Jilly Kart!

Clara and I are in Indiana for the rest of the month. We're both making discoveries that broaden our worlds (or something). On Saturday, Clara discovered my friend's cat. Dirks the Cat is now Clara's new favorite "person". Whenever he walked into the room, she giggled and giggled and squirmed around, trying to get closer to the cat. Fortunately, Dirks is very patient and still enough of a kitten to be pretty curious about Clara, too. Until now she's never found anything interesting enough to incite her to get off her butt. We may just have to get a cat ourselves. (nah)

As a completely unrelated observation, the Wii game system has hit Ft. Wayne with a vengenance, and it seems to me that everyone I know has one. At first, I wasn't real excited, because I've always hated video games and never expected that to change.

Then I played Mario Kart of the Wii.

Hoo, boy--do I like video games! On Saturday night, my friend and I were playing umpteen rounds of Mario Kart. As I was driving home on the highway, I passed over a large black spot of oil and thought to myself, "do I get a power boost for that?"

Yeah, I think I'd had enough Mario Kart for one day.

To be fair, it was midnight. But, for those of you who drive in Ft. Wayne this week and next, if you come across a red Saturn Vue in your daily commute, it may be prudent to keep your distance. I'm normally a good driver.

But it may be possible that I have again overdosed on Mario Kart.

Are Taxes Killing You, Too?

Mario has been sick all week and has been eating his way through rolls of Halls like his life depends on it. He told me that he bought all the rolls that were in the vending machine at work and then sent me to the OXXO to buy two more rolls. He gave me full liberty to choose any flavor that sounded interesting, so what did I choose?


Yes! Beer and lime Halls!

If we find that the beer habit is just getting a bit too expensive after that massive tax increase at the beginning of the year (15%), Halls has offerered a solution: beer candy.

Awesome, right?

I hope so, for Mario's sake.

And for those of you in the US, moaning about paying your taxes and possibly facing additional taxes to pay for possible improvements in health care (I feel your pain), think of us here in Mexico. We were socked at the beginning of this year with news that taxes on just about everything would be raised, without the benefit of any new or improved services to look forward to (or the hope such services). We just get to watch Congresspeople drive away in their new, enormous, gas-guzzling SUVs or fly away in their helicopters (the new gas taxes apparently don't affect them).

Meanwhile, at 5 pesos a roll, I'll suck away on those Halls. Definetly cheaper than beer. And a whole lot less satisfying.



By the way, if any government officials are reading this, I am in no way criticizing the government, its elected officials, or its policies and would like to remain a law-abiding, tax-paying resident of this beautiful country.

We're Open . . . But We're Not

I see this all the time--stores proclaiming to be open while the doors are clearly locked.



Why display an "open" sign if no one is going to use it properly?

I just chalk it up to one more thing I'll never understand.

Bees in the Blender

Mario's mom and sister are visiting, so we've been speaking a lot of Spanish. As Mago (Mario's mom) was washing dishes, I heard her say that she found an "aspa" in the blender. I believe that I heard the word for nest, too. I couldn't figure out how wasps had made a nest in the blender. And, oh, was I disgusted!

Mario couldn't understand my reaction, as he told me that his mom had found our missing blender blades in the blender. "Aspa" means blender blades--not wasp (avispa), like I thought I heard.

Whew--no wasps in the blender, and now I can make chunk-free baby food! Oh, the joys of not catching everything!

Improved Upon Translation

I hate translating. Unless people come to visit me. Then I LOVE it. But in general, it's a lot of work, so I do have a lot of respect for people who do it. Nevertheless, I do love catching mistakes.


Upon looking at the English side of my toothpaste the other day, I noticed that besides its whitening and cavity fighting powers, it also packs another punch. (Look very closely at the white lettering at the top of the tube.)

Yes! It fights EVIL breath!

NOT coming to a store near you!

For the first time in years, I finally bought a new pair of tennis shoes. They were desperately needed, as the pair I'm retiring was nicked from LMC's lost and found. That was two years ago. My toes were poking through the mesh in the sides.


But shoes are really expensive in Mexico and usually not great quality. Therefore, I was waiting for Mario to be sent to Portland for work and he'd pick me up a pair while he was there. Unfortunately, that trip got cancelled, thanks to the economy. My next plan was to have my parents bring me a pair when they came to visit. However, thanks to the swine flu, that trip was also cancelled. I was about to suggest a weekend visit to Texas when I saw a pair downtown that looked decent and were only $300 (pesos, that is--a bit less than 30USD).


Therefore, on Friday I trotted myself downtown and 30 minutes later triumphiantly returned home with my new pair of tenis. They're made-in-Mexico Pumas knockoffs. The brand name is the letter H, which they proceed to spell out phonetically on the label posted on the tongue of the shoe. In Spanish H is pronounced Ah-CHAY. However, it's not written like that in Spanish. It's written more like this:



Yes, my shoes are Aches. I did not notice this for a full 24 hours. (My husband, who is not a native English speaker, noticed it right away . . . go figure.)


I don't think this brand will succeed in the US market. Good thing they're not trying.