Civil Baptism?

Roughly 10 years ago, this commercial was pretty popular.  In a nutshell, it makes fun of the Mexican habit of putting lime on everything.


               


Toward the end of the commercial, where they´re squeezing lime on everything, even things that aren´t food, I thought to myself, "hmmm . . . so when Mexican babies have their birth certificates filed, do they get a little lime squeezed on their heads, as a kind of civil baptism?"

Can´t you just see it?  Mom and Dad and baby, all gathered in the Registro Civil, ink from fingerprinting still wet on their fingerprints, and as the official is about to hand the birth certificate over to the proud parents, the government offical takes a half of lime, squeezes a few drops onto the infant´s head, saying, "I now pronounce you officially Mexican!"

I love it.

As we just registered baby boy, I was really tempted to do just that.

But the comparison between filing a birth certificate and Catholic baptism is even more striking recently--because it is now necessary to bring witnesses to sign the birth certificate.

When we registered our oldest daughter, the people who worked at the Registro Civil served as the witnesses on her birth certificate, and (I´m guessing) on the majority of other kids´ certificates, too.  Or, if they Registry employees weren´t able to be witnesses, the Registry is right in front of a bus stop, so we could have just offered to pay someone their bus fare if they´d be willing to come in and sign their name on our kid´s birth certificate.

No longer.  We are now required to bring our own witnesses--no more picking random strangers off the street.

Thank goodness it worked out for us the way it did!  After all, we moved to Saltillo just two months before Clara was born--we simply didn´t have two people we knew who could serve as witnesses.  This time around, though, it was a whole other story.  First of all, Mario´s cousin lives with us.  Witness #1--check!  And Mario´s mom is visiting, to help take care of the baby.  Witness #2--check!

However, the day that Mario took off of work to file the baby´s birth certificate, both of our older kids were sick.  Since we couldn´t leave them at home alone, I was frantically on the phone, calling neighbors to see if they´d be willing to pay the Civil Registry a visit with us, taking Mario´s mom´s place as a witness.

Now that we´ve lived here for seven years, I had a number of people to call.  And at the last minute, one of my lovely neighbor friends was able to join us in a pinch.

As I told her and Paty (Mario´s cousin) as we were heading home with the birth certificate in our hands, "you guys are like Baby´s civil godmothers!"

And it´s true.  These women are, and will be, two of the more influential people in his life who will teach him, through example, how to be Mexican.  After all, as much as I enjoy and respect this country, I´m not Mexican and am therefore ill-equipped to teach him how to be Mexican.  I do my best, but--let´s face it--he needs a Paty and a Myra in his life.

His Mexican madrinas.  

Why Do I Do This?

What is it that attracts me to this blogging thing?

When I moved to Mexico for the first time, I thought it would be great to write a letter home every week.  But how much cooler would it be for everyone I knew to be able to read that letter?  Because, let´s face it, when I wrote letters to friends and family, inspiration would seize me within one week.  So I´d wind up writing three or four copies of roughly the same letter to three or four different people.  Had I only know that, through the magic of the internet, is was possible to maximize my time and write one letter for all my loved ones to read!  However, this was back in 2003 and the blogosphere was in its infancy.  Not being tech-savvy, I was clueless this medium existed.  So, during my first two years in Mexico, I was mostly out-of-touch with people, except for the occasional email.

When we moved to Saltillo, I was seven months pregnant with my daughter.  I explored the town well for the first month or two, and then more or less hibernated for the next few months, being the on-demand milk machine and sleeping whenever possible.  "Sleep when the baby sleeps."  Right.  No one told my daughter that most babies take a nap or two every day.

On the very first day she finally took a nap (at the ripe old age of 4 1/2 months--Mother´s Day, no less), I started this blog.  At the time, my only plans for this blog were to keep my friends and family in touch with how my daughter was growing.  But then I started writing about Mexico.  Most of my friends won´t have the chance to visit me here.  They´re curious, and have their preconceived notions about what Mexico is like.  Much like my preconceived notions, some are true, some are false, and most are some nuanced version that´s neither true nor false.  This blog became my way to explain what I like about Mexico.

What I like about Mexico can´t be summed up in two sentences, those sound bites that we like to take away from stories of others´ travels.  What I like about Mexico is a conglomeration of lots of little things, most too subtle to even remember, unless I find myself sitting down in front of a computer screen, trying to explain what it is that draws me here.

It´s the uncovered bulb that lights every corner store at night, bravely pouring its light and warmth into the darkness.

It´s the native poinsettias, colorfully proclaiming a joyful holiday, instead of the cold, white snow that I grew up with.

It´s the pork meat, slowly rotating on a spit, exposed to the air and elements and fire, dripping with fat--delicious and decadent and dirty all at the same time.

It´s the exposed, aged, wooden beams in the ceiling, and the foot-thick stone window frames in colonial buildings, silently supporting and witnessing centuries of history.

It´s hanging my clothes to dry on a line in my patio, knowing that they´ll be dry in a half hour, with that clean-clothes-crunch, and smelling of the sun and fresh air.

After doing this for awhile, I realize that this blog is mainly just for me, to define my thoughts and experience and is a somewhat concrete way to make sense of life--a therapy of sorts, a practice of which could benefit anyone, wherever they live.

But like any therapy, a certain amount of sharing must take place.  And let me be honest, this sharing is what makes my husband a bit skittish about this whole blog business.  Growing up in a big city, Mr. Mexico City is well-versed in the dangers of letting strangers know your personal information.  And he´s spent enough time with Ms. Small Town me to realize that I can show some pretty amazing displays of midwestern American naivety in that regard.

But, at the same time, what´s the point of doing anything unless it´s personal?

This blog started off as a vent for my loneliness.  Then it became a means of meeting the first, real, human friend I had here in Saltillo.  Then I found a community of bloggers, and we all discovered that we´re not just a handful of nutters packing up and leaving the US for life in Mexico--there are LOTS of us!  Finally, this has provided me with a means of meeting people who are preparing to move to Saltillo, and reassure them that yes, you can do this, too.

It´s funny, the places where small decisions can take us.  I just thought blogging would be a good creative outlet for me.  I had no idea I´d get something nearly tangible--like real friendships--out of it.

This makes me pause when I make a small change in my life.  Will this change wind up taking on a life of its own?

But I guess that´s that´s the good thing about some changes.  I´ll try to embrace them more often.