Eating... and not

We love food. Ok, everyone loves food. But Dave & I really love food. I overheard a friend of ours telling someone "you'll never be hungry at their house!" Even though we love food, we love going out to eat, and we have pretty good jobs, we still rarely eat at 4-star restaurants. They're a rare expensive treat for us. But in Mexico, we are a little luckier. This weekend, for example, we went to arguably the best restaurant in Guadalajara and had apetizers, entrees, desert, and wine for about what 2 people normally spend at Red Lobster. :)

I wish that we could eat a lot of really good food (like Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma's house, or lasagna on my birthday, or strawberries in June) and then not have to eat again for a while. bc it was really annoying to have an amazing meal and then have to eat again a few hours later, especially knowing that this meal would be more practical and less extravagant.

After a long weekend of great fun and great eating, we were stuck on Sunday noonish. We had slept past breakfast, would return home after dinner, and were near nothing resembling food for lunch. The restaurant we settled on passed our nomal test (at least 4 locals inside) and also had a few gringos.
Let's just say that after the worst food poisoning I think we've ever had, we both were wondering if we should have just gone hungry.

Mexico has great food. And also a few bacterias. *sigh*

First Class Life

We flew internationally for free this month. Well, not exactly for free. It was Dave's reward for already flying internationally several times. But then something pretty amazing happened. On the way back to Mexico City, we got a free first-class upgrade. I've seen people sitting in first class before, and I've even got to sit there for a few short flights. better food. more room. kinda nice. This was amazing - the seats reclined to a nearly flat bed, each seat came with it's own personal entertainment center, there was plenty of space to walk around and spread our legs. Very amazing.
So amazing in fact, that I started to wonder. What makes someone comfortable in a first class seat? in a first-class life? how many upgrades would I need before I started to believe that I truly needed one? how many flights before coach seats seemed like a completely different world? how often would I have to fly first class before I started ignoring or forgetting the other hundreds of passengers on this plane crammed in like sardines?
Two days after our amazing trip, while I uploaded pictures to dropshots and emailed friends and family and started planning a scrapbook and arranged new souveniers on the shelves, our housekeeper was quietly washing our clothes from our trip.
So I started to wonder again.
Why am I still uncomfortable being in the house while she does her job? The job gets done, and we still pay her, whether I"m there watching her or not. How many days would I have to sit on the couch, enjoying my life, watching someone else throw out my trash and wash my dishes and fold my clothes before I started to believe that I truly could not do those things on my own? When would I start ignoring or forgetting the other people who had to clean someone else's house in order to afford their own?
This week I'm traveling with Dave on a business trip. When he travels, his company pays for the best: comfortable travel arrangements, 4-star hotels, first-class food. His Mexican co-workers have to drive a small car that doesn't meet US safety regulations. stay in a hotel 5 km outside of town. wait 20 minutes for special recipts or they won't get repaid for their 2-taco dinner.
I think, in the end, I'm glad that I am uncomfortable sitting in first class. I'm thankful that I still leave when the housekeeper is coming. I'm proud that Dave signs out a nicer car for his co-workers to drive.
If first-class becomes too comfortable, it just might get too lonely there at the top.

Goals

This morning at church my mind was really wandering. Unfortunately, that's not unusual. With MI unemployment at 15% (highest in the nation for 22 months running!), there's a serious possibility that my life when we return will be very different than when we left, and from my life here in Mexico.
Thankfully, we sang "What a friend we have in Jesus", reminding me "what needless pains we bear all because we do not carry everything to God in Prayer". Which got my mind back on track. If God told me today what my life would look like Sept. 2010, I may not be ready to hear it. So instead, I tried to remember if I'm meeting all the goals I had for the time that I am here in Mexico. I can't worry about tomorrow, but I can make today count for something.

Here's what I wrote last October:
When I return, I want to:
know Spanish. Not just I speak it a little.
see as much of Mexico as possible.
learn how to run a library, how to teach a subject I know nothing about.
donate my time, and my money, and my skills to make Mexico a better place.
rely on God more fully than before. I want to trust Him, no matter where He sends me.
There's a lot of other silly things, too. I want to write a book or two, and catch up on scrapbooking, and learn to play the piano (again). I want to read a lot, and make new friends, and learn new recipies. I want to spend time with my husband and lead mission trips and visit with my nieces & nephews.

So, how am I doing? Well, I still have some time, and I might not finish everything, but I'm doing ok. I am speaking Spanish much better, and I have more time to learn. I survived a year of teaching math, and now I'm leading workshops for the other teachers and teaching my dream curriculum - social studies - next year. I have read a lot of new books and tried a lot of new foods and traveled all over the country and hosted a lot of family at our house.
I'm still working on trusting God more and finding enough time to spend with family. I haven't practiced piano, and I'm still far behind on my scrapbooking. But maybe those will happen, too. There's always something else that needs to get done, right?

British Reflections

Even though this blog is supposed to be about our time in Mexico, Dave & I are just wrapping up a 2 week vacation in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland. It's the longest vacation we've ever taken together, and we had a great time! We also learned a lot from vacationing in a place that's NOT mexico!

How to know you're in the UK (and/or Ireland):
1. All the signs are in English, but you can't understand anything that anyone is saying. hmmm.
2. 30C/ 90F is an "extremely dangerous heat wave". no joke.
3. Trinny and Susannah (the british 'what not to wear' ladies) were exactly right about British women: they wear entirely too much black. Even in the aforementioned heat wave, they were often wearing black leggings, black stockings, black blazers, etc. even with pastel cotton sundresses. Men were also wearing black suits with long sleeved shirts, leather shoes, and wool socks. Hasn't anyone here heard of khakis??!!
4. Most of the country looks like a United Colors of Benneton ad.
White people are really really white. Bc of the extreme heat, kids were running around in swimsuits (no joke) and adults were taking off as much (black) clothing as possible. No tan lines, no strap lines, no farmers tans, no bronzing, no fake tans, nothing. Just massive, unashamed whiteness.
Black people are really really black. Perhaps bc they're surrounded by such whiteness, they just look blacker, but I think it's bc so many of them are actually immigrants from the Carribean or Africa. Very black.
Indians are actual indians. From india. And, yes, they sound kinda like the guy on the simpsons.
5. They are very "green" here. Low flow toilets & showers, recycling bins, cloth bags and tap water, hybrid buses.
6. Truth in advertising. Special K commericals in the states claim you can lose 8 pounds in 2 weeks. I don't know anyone who's done it, but that's what the ad says. Here, the exact same ad says, "see if you can lose weight with special K". much more honest, yes? And food labels have to state if anything inside is artificial, genetically modified, or otherwise possibly harmful for you. This means a lot more healthy food available everywhere.
7. Homeless people there smell not so bad. And there's very few of them. Most of the homeless we saw (except for central london after dark) looked, well, kinda like us!
8. The days were really long. As in, most days we missed both sunset & sunrise bc they happened while we were in bed! Dave had to remind me how far north the UK is - even much farther north than our home in Michigan.

How to know that you're not in Mexico (except for the English signs): the roads
- they're very clean, almost completely free of litter.
- people follow traffic laws. even when there are no police around. and the drivers are actually pleasant to one another and considerate to pedestrians.

Another amazing insight from our trip:
Trains are a much better way to travel than planes. More room, less hassle, more sensible security policies, better view, cheaper price. We need more in the US.

Check out our pics on dropshots in a few days!

Airport Reflections

Stuck in an airport (or 3) and a plane (or 2) gives me great time to think. Or, more acurately, gives me too much time for my mind to wander. Yesterday my brain was zooming from one thought to another like an ADHD 3 year old on a sugar buzz. Of course, trying to keep my jumbled train of thoughts far away from the sad reality of leaving just made it worse.

So, I tried to focus on 2 reflections that were made by co-teachers of mine. (We're all frequent fliers, in our situation, so we swap lots of airport stories!)

Comment #1: "I feel like a minority at the Detroit airport!" Well, Dave & I definitely feel more like minorities living in Mexico than in Detroit. But airports are an interestingly diverse group of people. And I really like that diversity. I like sharing the plane with a black family and a rabbi and muslim women in hijabs and businesspeople and little kids and retirees and housewives and students. I like making people wonder which of those categories I fit into ;) I like eavesdropping on Spanish conversations pretending I have no idea what's going on. I like looking at people's shoes and luggage and guessing where they're from and what they do for a living. So I spent a lot of time, this trip, people watching and people guessing in order to avoid any sort of reflection on my own life.

Comment #2: "There's almost never any women in first class." I had never really paid any attention to who was in first class until very recently. I wasn't sitting there, no one I knew sat there, so it was almost an invisible group to me. But then my DH & I started getting upgrades, and so did my parents, and so did a few of my friends - one of whom made this comment about being the only woman in first class. So now I always look. And I always count. Tuesday, there were 2 american women in first class from Detroit to New York. One was half of a couple, and one was clearly a business woman. But, as this flight was barely half-full, it's very likely that both were upgrades from "business class" and had not purchaed full-price first class tickets. There were 4 Mexican women on the flight from JFK to DF, and none of them were "business"women. This was a very full flight, mainly families going on vacation, and I'm pretty sure each of those women were in first class because a man in their family (husband, father, brother) made enough money to purchase those seats for them. Seems very odd that the richer country does not have enough women who can "afford" first class, but the poorer country does. Also very ironic, I was reading a book on both flights about how mothers are pushed out of the American workplace.

Now, back to "real" life. Whatever that means.

Don't Judge Me, but

There are some things that cannot be easily handled sober.

Saying good-bye is one of them.

I haven't been to Heaven, but I've been to Oklahoma...

Dave & I were both raised in small towns. We had great childhoods, but somehow we both chose to live in a suburban/ small urban area of Michigan, and then to live and work in one of the most crowded urban areas in the world! (that's right - Mexico City rivals only Tokyo is size and crowds)

While we're back in the states, we're taking a lot of time to visit with our families. But we're having a bit of cultural shock.

Some of it's good things - roads that are easy to drive, signs that are easy to read, well-stocked grocery stores, fresh air, etc.

But some of the most shocking news was that we have changed in the 10 years since high school graduation.

For example, Dave has aparently developed a phobia of country music. He nearly covered his ears and ran screaming to the car before I could stop him.
Kelly has developed a phobia of germs, pesticides, and genetically modified ingredients. I was shocked to discover that rural gas stations do not carry hand sanitizer.

But it wasn't until the band started singing, "they say I was born here, but I don't remember" that we started to realize we weren't blending in. The small Japanese car in the parking lot. The "imported" drinks at our table. My target cardigan and comfortable shoes. Dave's short, trimmed hair. Hmmm.

We're going to be the crazy people. The ones who demand that the local school curriculum includes diverse literature. The ones who buy organic mac'n'cheese. The ones who carry a "green" bible to church. The ones who rinse out the trash, bc it might be recycled. The ones who speak to their server in Spanish - at a greek restaurant.

sheesh. I'm embarrassing myself.