The first 72 hours....

3/18/09

So here we are at the end of our second full day in Tapachula, and it’s about time to start getting some of this down before it all becomes Life and therefore indistinnguishable from all the rest.

We arrived here after a full day of travel that started in a hotel rooom in New Jersey at around 5 am and ended with a bumpy truck ride at 90 km/hour over dirt and concrete to our dwelling in an old neighborhood of this southern Mexican city of 250,000 at midnight. Baxter slept through that last bit, true to form. During our 8 hour layover in Mexico City we opted to tour the city by cab with a kindly driver named Senor Javier, who led us through sections of the city old and new, inviting us to step out at turns for brief experiences in each. Top stops were as follows.

Baxter: the large Aztec traditional headdresses seen on dancers at the old zocalo, or town square and spending haggling from 60 to 50 pesos for some Aztec bling.

Mahlon: eating an ice cream slushy [made from questionably clean ice-Ed.] at the foot of a giant statue of a lion.

Tula: the lady who kept giving me candy in the 7-11 near the giant arch that looked like the Arc de Triomphe. Oh, and probably the park made out of old VW bugs.

Greg: playing in the Old Zocalo.

Kristin: that nobody got abducted and Javier always came back for us.

We arrived in the casa de Dona Olga, who is graciously hosting us for the time we are here, exhausted and somewhat delirious, but relieved to be arrived, and quickly crashed in our upstairs rooms where we all slept the sleep of the dead.

We awoke too early, given the aforementioned. The rest of the house was still asleep, though they claimed we did not bother them, which I can’t quite believe. The “rest of the house” includes Dona Olga; her husband whose name continuously escapes me;her adopted 28 year old daughter, Myra along with her 2 month old baby, Dondrion; Dona Olga’s 18 year old son, Jordan, who works in the small tienda or store they own down the street (more on that later); and the 18 month old boy Dona Olga adopted from the hospital after his mother abandoned him at birth. His name is Angel, or “Angelito,” and he was born with extensive hydrocephalus and brain damage and cannot walk or talk or see very well or swallow solid foods and is on multiple expensive seizure medications and that’s the sort of person this Dona Olga is. But more on her later, too.

While Greg recovered in bed Kristin and the kids took a brief tour of the neighborhood. All were delighted by the multiple small dogs peering down from rooftops of our neighbors homes. The mangy 100 year old cat, not so delightful. It is difficult for Tula not to touch things that seem like they might be soft and purring and disease-ridden, but we are working on that. We discovered a small school with uniformed children and a playground that outdoes every one I have ever known for its sketch factor, but we emerged unscathed nonetheless and will likely return. Baxter purchased a plastic transformer in a small tienda and a plastic doll for Tula that she named Tisturd, which gives her brothers endless pleasure.

A word on meals in our new home. Breakfast, or el desayuno, is a medium sized meal taken around 10 am and consisting of warm corn tortillas, black beans, some meat or stew, rice, fruits, and avocado (since I mentioned to the family that I require the latter daily). Lunch is the main meal of the day, and is eaten later than our lunch back home, usually between 2 and 4pm, often lasting the whole time. Here, the whole family reconvenes to eat and spend time together before resuming work activities from 4-7 or 8 at night. Dinner, which I am about to go downstairs, is taken late: 9 or 10, and is very light. I am hoping for quesadillas again, as they were amazing last night.

3/19/09, Day 3.

Since I have not yet writen about yesterday, I will do it now. It marked the first of our “normal” weekdays here in Tapachula, in that the kids spent their first day with the nanny, or nenina, Kristin worked as doctora at the shelter Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor, and Greg did his work-from-afar at various places around the center of the town (cyber cafes, etc….anywhere he could find good coffee, I think). Before picking up the kids we each had about a 45 minute Spanish lesson from an artist-friend of Julianna (more on her later) named Gisel. We then collected the kids by taxicab and headed back to casa Dona Olga for comidas, or the Big Lunch.

The weather is uniformly hot and humid, and I think we are all at last feeling a little normal despite this big change of climate. The kids have been enjoying immensely a certain fountain in the center of the old city, or al centro. It is surrounded by large banyan trees and contains a giant, wooden bandstand where mariachi and other bands play nightly. Everybody here calls this place the pargue nuevo, or “new park,” because it was only built a few weeks ago, and has become a huge hit in the town. The park takes up several blocks on each side and houses three or four varieties of fountain, and water squirting in the air in as many ways possible. The only place you are actually allowed to immerse yourself is a large flat area, appriximately 20 feet by 20 feet, with a series of holes spurting water 20 feet in the sky at unpredictable intervals. We have enjoyed getting totally drenched for the past 2 nights alongside the throngs of Tapachulatecs, and will probably go back for more tonight.

The afternoons we have been spending exploring. Yesterday we took a cab ride (the only way to get around if you want to go anywhere far and have more than 4 people) to the largest daily market, or mercado, in town: el mercado San Juan. We probably should have gone a little earlier in the day, since by the afternoon the climate had taken a toll on all things living and the smells were a little intense. I, for my part, found happiness in the abundance of avocados and the fact that they cost about half a USD for a bag of 6.

In general, the kids are adjusting very well to this new pace of life. In truth, we have an abundance of time together, despite the working and day care and the carting around of one another between el desayuno and las comidas. We lounge around in the morning doing homework, studying Spanish, adding to our blog, etc, and then spend the afternoons and early evenings finding our way around the town. We are hoping to do some more extensive exploration of out lying areas, including beach and mountains, each about a 1/2 hour away, on the weekends. This morning I ran around with Dona Olga on various errands, including a visit to a lab that gives her and the shelter a discount on studies for folks who live there and have no means of paying. The doctor there pulled me aside and made me look at a CT scan with him, ostensibly to chit chat in English about the possible diagnoses, but finally to invite me and my family to his beach house so he can practice his English. So we might be doing that this weekend.

More needs to be said about the morning with Dona Olga. She wears many hats in a day, but essentially everything she does revolves around the well being of her shelter for injured migrants and the people who take refuge there. Since my role seems not to be entirely clear to anyone, least of all me, I felt no compunction today in agreeing to accompany her and the shelter doctor, Doctor Barcelot, on some errands when invited. The morning flow went sort of like this: Doctor Barcelot and I were visiting a migrant who had fallen off (been pushed from?) the top of a train en route “al norte, “ or up north. He had broken his femur but was discharged from the local hospital once stable, as he had no ability to pay for an operation that costs $16,000 pesos, or about $1,000 USD. He wound up at the shelter because Dona Olga routinely takes in such folks and, frankly, no one else will. His surgery is in a week—or maybe tomorrow….depending on the availability of the hardware they are planning on putting in his femur and hip. The man lay in a small metal cot amidst several others in a sparsely decorated room, a few tattered but clean blankets on the bed. In the middle of explaining to me this man's situation, the doctor was interrupted by a phone call to speak with a social worker at a local hospital. Apparently, a three year old child had been kicked across the room by his mother’s new husband, and was recovering from a broken femur, a ruptured spleen, and sepsis. He was ready for discharge, but had no home to go to, now that his mother and three other siblings were themselves living in a shelter to avoid the new husband. All four would soon be coming to Albergue, but before that could happen the child needed antibiotics and labs and a trip back and forth by ambulance to get the labs done…..all tommorrow, all without the ability to pay. Enter Dona Olga. So our morning consisted of buying the antibiotics, trekking to the hospital to meet the child, meeting another young man there who will soon be discharged and needs a place to recuperate, and a quick stop by one of the three small shops run by Albergue to fund its mission. Oh, yes, and I almost forgot the trip to el mercado San Juan to purchase water and boullion for the stores, and then the stop at the lab.

Baxter is here and he will now tell you the top 5 things about Mexico as he sees it:

1. That I got an Aztec necklace with points sticking out of it. (read: weapon. Almost got it confiscated boarding the plane from D.F. to Tap)
2. Going to places by taxi in Mexico City.
3. The water fountain.
4. Finding a scorpion in our bedroom yesterday.
5. Watching everybody shove cake in each other’s faces at the birthday party downstairs last night.

Least favorite things:
1. Having to sit on the airplane for so long.
2. Finding a scorpion in our bedroom yesterday.
3. Not being able to speak English at the table or we owe Dona Olga 50 pesos for EACH WORD.
4. The heat is So HOT.
5. The smell of distusting fish at the market yesterday.

And that's it for now.