Tapachula 2009

Swine flu!

2009-04-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

Posted by Mahlon:

~~~
When we got back from Mexico there was a new disease called swine flu that started in Mexico. And when we came back it was spring break so after that I got really sick after the first week of school and then missed the next week. I was a little afraid that I would miss the next couple days of school but I luckily recovered over the weekend but still had a minor cough. When I got to school on Monday my teacher told me to put my stuff down and go to the nurse because the nurse wanted to check on me. So when I went to the nurse she said that I had to miss school for the next couple of days so I could be checked for swine flu. I really don't think that I have it because I don't fll sick at all now, but we will find out soon.

~~~

UPDATE 4/30/09: Mahlon doesn't have H1N1 Swine Flu, three tests have put him in the clear. He's back at school after four days off.

el dia extraordinario, part II--beware. A Very Long Post.

2009-04-14T12:16:00.001-07:00

So, for those of you who have been so kindly following along with our family saga, you may have noticed that about two weeks ago the blog entries sort of stopped. Abruptly. There was a reason for this, and I apologize for not having warned you in advance, as some folks, it seems, became alarmed, thinking some terrible calamity had befallen us. (It had.....but that's not the reason the blogs stopped. More on Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease later.) In fact we were merely traveling, and without internet, for the last week of our trip, so hence no blogging.

The even more astute of you will also note that today's post occurs some days after our well-publicized return date of April 10th. Not to worry, we did make it back on schedule. But despite the fact that the adventures are over, the downloading of them is not; we plan to just keep adding to this thing until everything that needs to be told is told.

One of the things that needs big-time telling occurred over two weeks ago, during the latter half of the dia extraordinario. Part of the reason I have not been able to bring myself to tell it was the sheer mind-blowing nature of it all..... It has taken a bit to process. On the surface, it was a patient encounter--ordinary enough, right? I am a doctor, after all, or have at least been playing one for over a decade. But while the encounter did stir up many things for me, it was the surrounding context that really blew me away. Allow me to explain.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, Juliana was kind enough to set up a Spanish tutor for Greg and me during our weekday afternoons. Our tutor was a lovely woman, the daughter of a doctor/public health servant and his fashionable and kind wife, herself an owner of a cute papeleria. One day, about a week into our studies, my tutor asked if I would be willing to speak with her mother about a "friend" who had been bedridden for some time, lived on the outskirts of Tapachula, and was in constant, chronic pain. She apparently had been under care of doctors in the past but had recently been unable to travel to free clinics--the only clinics she could afford, as she was unable to work in her condition--because the clinics themselves were too far away and required an ambulance ride which, of course, she also could not afford. I agreed to see her, and the trip was planned in a tentative way for "after the weekend."

A few days later, I, Juliana, my Spanish tutor's sister and their mother were shuttling through Tapachula, "the pearl of Soconusco," to the northeast side of town. The air-conditioned ride felt strangely unnecessary after two weeks of cabbing it through the sweltering Tapachula heat, windows down. We arrived after about twenty minutes in a neighborhood not unlike the one we were living in at Infonavit Las Vegas: narrow, dirt or stone-slab streets populated with smallish but brightly painted cement structures, corrugated metal roofs on the tops of some, and smallish, yappy dogs on others. It was about 5pm, and the late afternoon light created a nice ambiance as we left the minivan and made our way into a narrow cul-de-sac where children were playing, across a stretch of dirt, to a bridge.

The bridge reminded me of something out of Shrek. About 60 feet in length, it was suspended over a 100-foot deep gorge by thick cords of flexible metal. The bridge itself was made up of wooden planks, several with 2-inch gaps or more between them,

and as we made our way across it, the bridge swayed dangerously. A group of kids on bikes waited on the other side for us to pass before risking their own trip across. I was grateful for this, as I was sure their additional jostles would create just the right amount of resonance to send us all flying into the lush and well-littered gorge below.

The road after that was all unpaved. We walked for about 10 more minutes, past small cement shops selling the usual sundries and homes in varying states of being constructed, or of falling over. One house seemed propped up by the stumps of sawed-off trees, sprouting leafy green fronds in between hammered-on wooden slats and metal sheets. Despite the obvious poverty here, there was the usual spectrum of pride of ownership, and some homes, like this one, were quite charming and clearly housed a gardener:

The home we were visiting was one of the better-tended ones. From the outside it had the appearance of being several boxy, wooden sheds of different heights tied together by various sheets of corrugated metal roofing, and despite the absence of any real separation of "inside" and "outside," the setting looked tidy and its inhabitants, well-cared for. We were greeted by the woman who had agreed to let our patient, who I will call "MC," and her daughter stay there after the accident which had left them without an income. This woman was pleasant and expressed her gratitude that we had come. She led us down some cement steps, through several dark rooms separated by sheets of cloth, to the bed where MC lay. Chickens and kittens welcomed us in as we became accustomed to the dim light.

When my eyes had adjusted I saw a woman of about 40 lying naked under a sheet on a queen sized bed, surrounded with various items that looked like they slept with her permanently: a comb, a mirror, a small box of tissues, the remote control. A large, colorful cardboard cut-out of Santa Claus dangled above her bed from a piece of red twine. She spoke rapidly in Spanish and flashed a huge smile of recognition at the mother and sister of my tutor. She did not possess at all the demeanor I expected her to. Tie me to a bed for almost a year and I would surely sink so deeply into the sheets as to be un-findable. But not MC. She was vivacious, talkative, bubbly, and interested to hear how the family had been over the past year.

Her story, when she told it, was devastating. She had been a strong, healthy woman who, almost a year ago now, had fallen from a 2 meter ledge in her rented home that had no banister, landing on her left hip on a concrete floor. Her spine had broken in two places, and her spinal cord been damaged, leaving her with no sensation or motion in the lower half of her body. She had had one surgery, to put her vertebrae back together with metal rods, after which she had been discharged to the rental home she could no longer afford with a 20 year old daughter who became her everything. Her pain was severe, both in her left hip and in her back, where she felt like "something sharp was rubbing under my skin everytime I moved." She spent a month lying flat in bed, where she developed ulcers under both legs and lost, for lack of use, the upper body strength necessary to maneuver herself into a sitting position. There was no physical therapy provided, or even suggested, by the doctor who had done her surgery. She did have one follow up appointment scheduled, "for them to look at my hip, which they never bothered to examine on my first visit," but by that time she required several people to lift her, would have required an ambulance she could not afford to get there, and so of course did not go.....

At this point in the story she asked us all to leave for a moment, stating that she needed her daughter to come change her diaper before she was examined. She was on her period, she said, and did not want to offend anyone, "even though we are all women here," she called after us exhuberantly. During this break I took a self-guided tour through the less sheltered portion of the home, exiting through a crooked door made of planks nailed to sticks. A row of dark, well-used cast iron griddles, lined up neatly and wedged into the fence that surrounded the property, caught my eye, and I wondered what they were doing there. Directly above them in my line of vision, but much closer to me, was a row of three chickens roosting on what appeared to be a tree branch. As my eyes adjusted to what was now brightness, I began to recognize that I was standing in the family's kitchen. The pans suddenly made more sense, so close in proximity to the cooking apparatus--in this case, the open bottom of an oil barrel split length-wise, and topped with a wire grill, on which the remains of wood from an earlier meal had been set to smolder. A wayward white squirt from one of the ruffled birds actually hit the smoking log, causing a little sizzle.

I was reminded of the story of a home visit told by one of my colleagues in residency, where it was discovered that three different types of animal feces were noted to be evident in the home of the patient being called upon, "some wild, and some domestic," and that there was a discussion of public health risks and so on. The two domestic turned out to be a dog and a cat, and I could tell that some of us were on the fence about whether this consituted grounds for alerting the health bureau--I mean, anyone who has raised a puppy or a kitten has discovered the occasional, week-old "accident" under the table in the livingroom. But we had all shuddered at the part about wild animal poop until we made him spell out that they were in fact mouse droppings. I mean, come on. If we're gonna start calling the city about mouse droppings, at least hand everyone a free mouse trap or two before you do it. (And this is the point at which half of you decide never to visit my home again.) In any event, when I saw the injured squirrel in a cage,

and then the sick dog in a box,

the number had indeed reached three (4, if you count the kittens), and this memory flashed into my mind. I do not hesitate to think that this situation would have indeed been a cause for alarm among public health people--both back home and here, in Mexico.

At this point MC was ready for me, and after an exam in which I determined that yes, her legs did not work and yes, she did have leg ulcers that, though tended to carefully and thoroughly by her 20 year old daughter, were not going to get any better until she got out of bed, I began my acupuncture treatment. I decided to address both her chronic back/hip pain and her chronic qi depletion, with an N->N+1 treatment of the Chong Mo/Dai Mo curious meridians. As I put the ear needles in she became extremely anxious and squirrely, so I had her place a few drops of essence of flowers under her tongue before I completed the treatment. She remained anxious and uncomfortable until the electricity was hooked up and the moxa going over her feet, and it was at this point that MC began cooing to me--to all of us--relaxing into it, saying it felt "muy rico," and inviting me to come live with her. ("After all, there's an extra bed, right over there!") I found myself once again amazed at the rapidity with which people here seem to respond to acupuncture, as she stated that her hip pain was progressively leaving her, her nerves relaxing, and that she was starting to feel "something moving" in her legs and feet. We left with her completely relaxed and pain-free, and agreed to come back two days later if schedules permitted.

So what bothered me so much about this afternoon? It wasn't simply the pathetic state in which we found MC. Though her invisibility to the larger health care system was appalling, access to care is a problem in this country, as well, and did not surprise me. The degree of poverty we encountered there was surprising to me, but even so, she was well-taken care of by a loving (if exhausted) daughter, and had been taken in by generous souls. She had a roof over her head, clean sheets to cover her, meals three times a day. The home terrain was less than ideal for a rehabilitation program--even if she could be assisted into a wheelchair and her upper body strength encouraged, which I asked all there to do religiously, learning to navigate a wheelchair on rocky, uneven earth would be extremely difficult. Any trips that she might be able to afford in an ambulance would also have to entail three or four people carrying her on a stretcher for 10 minutes over a rocky dirt road, and then across a foot bridge. And so on.

These features made her story more horrifying than the already devastating fact of the loss of her lower body and elimination functions. But as we walked back at dusk over the perilously swaying foot bridge, I was struggling with something else that I could not yet name.

My thoughts and emotions were swirling during the minivan ride back to my tutor's house, where Juliana and I had been invited for "refrescas." They lived less than 2 miles from what I later learned was called "la perla del norte," or The Pearl of the North...the name of the area of town in which MC lived. Yet the houses here ran along well paved roads which afforded nice views over the city of Tapachula. It was difficult to tell where the homes started and ended, as they were all surrounded by large, blandly painted walls that were taller than me, and often studded with small iron spikes at the top. At one such fortress the minivan stopped, and a large garage door slid sideways and we were admitted into..... such a retreat! Large, mature plants hung on all sides, and a small, scalloped walkway led to an ornately constructed dwelling that was painted a calming shade of sea blue. The large, glossy wooden doors opened to reveal my tutor's mother, who had gone in ahead, and she greeted us warmly and offered us use of the lavatory (which ended up being the nicest place I peed in all of Mexico, including, though I hadn't experienced it yet, the bathroom in our fancy resort in Cancun). The house was open and airy, and had accents of Chinese art throughout, in addition to the usual religious paintings and decor--though I noticed that even these seemed much more expensive and elaborate than in other places I had visited in Tapachula.

We sat on the porch surrounded by comfort and sipping "jamaica," which was refreshing and delightful and completely surreal after the two hours we had just spent at MC's. As we enjoyed our drinks in the light breeze the mood was somber, contemplative. The sister said suddenly, "She used to be so strong....her legs were so thick!...she used to be able to carry a table--that table there," (and here she pointed), "all the way across this deck to that house, by herself." "That table?" I asked. Oh, yes. As it turns out, MC used to WORK FOR this family....well, not this family, really, the uncle's family, next door...before her accident. Suddenly it all made sense. The sense of duty that drove this kind, upper class woman to seek out a volunteer doctor's opinion, and to trek out to the Pearl of the North. The look of recognition and delight on MC's face when mother and daughter appeared in her room. The strangely familiar way that the my tutor's sister had admonished MC for not getting out of bed more often, firm but loving. This family, this home, had kind of been her home....but that had all changed the day she slipped and fell off a concrete ledge without a banister.

The tutor's mother asked what I thought of "the case" of MC, and sudddenly I knew exactly what I thought. I thought it was tragic. I thought it was shameful. I thought it was ridiculous that here I was, in the home of one of two doctors who knew this woman well--whose families had benefitted from her strength, her energy, her hard work and her cheerful disposition--and who had not managed to help her get even basic follow up care after a surgery that had not brought her relief, or physical therapy, or even her records from the hospital so she might be better informed of her prognosis. I thought it was absurd that I was contemplating her pathetic tale from the comfort of a place that she had once been a part of, while she was lying in a dark room with chicken poop on the floor and no space to learn how to use a wheelchair. Above all, I thought it was crazy that the only professional advice available to her was that of a random, volunteer family doc from America who had no way of providing the kind of continuity and follow up that her "case" deserved.

But I didn't know how to say that in a way that would be helpful and not indicting to this clearly well-meaning family (let alone how to say it in Spanish). So what I said instead was this: "I find it very, very sad. And hard to believe that there is no one here, in Tapachula, to help her." The mother leaned forward and whispered, emphatically, "Yes, that's exactly it. It IS difficult to believe." Her daughter began to explain that in Mexico there is not the same culture of volunteerism as exists in the United States, that people here "only look out for themselves and their family." I had heard this before, when talking to locals about the shelter, but I still found that hard to swallow. You mean in this country, were the intellectuals were never punished or "sent down" anywhere, where there exists a wealthy leisure class, there is NO ONE interested in serving others than themselves? In this town, on the border, which sees so much suffering of displaced and mutilated migrants, and even had a college devoted to the southern "frontera"... weren't there even a handful of undergrads there interested in a little service-learning? No, the answer was. And in fact, that college really only specializes in frontier agriculture.....

But the disconnect was powerful. I was living with Dona Olga and family, a collection of Tapachultecos who seemed to live ONLY to serve others. In addition to portraits of Saints and Mother Theresa as a young girl, the walls of their home were scattered with small, unobtrusively placed plaques and certificates documenting the gradual recognition--first locally, then by the president of Mexico, and soon to be joined by an award the Dalai Lama will present to Dona Olga and Don Jordan later this month--of this family's dedication to human rights and social justice. Dona Olga was a simple, humble woman. She did not attend school, and never learned to read or write. Neither she nor her husband came from wealth or the leisure class. Yet she had been a force capable of changing the way her town handles ailing migrants. Was that the prerequisite here, then? Having suffered enough to know the pain of others? When I talked to cab drivers or people I met in shops about what I was doing in Tapachula, they had all, to a one, heard of Dona Olga's work, and all expressed their appreciation for what the shelter does for the dispossessed migrants. But when I shared this with Doris, one of the administrators of the shelter, she laughed and said, "Oh, they SAY that, but what are they doing to help?" I did not have an answer. I still don't.

Dona Olga with Angelito, the 18 month child she took in who had been abandoned at birth.

Learning Large in Tapachula (Mahlon and Baxter)

2009-04-02T16:48:00.001-07:00

Part of the deal when setting up the plan to come to Mexico for a month was an agreement with Mahlon's and Baxter's school that we would 'disenroll' them for a month and re-enroll upon our return. This made things simpler on their end in terms of record keeping, accountability to the state, etc.

From our end, this has meant becoming home-schoolers for a month, a task that was, in truth, quite simple in light of their being surrounded by thousands of new things, in a new city, surrounded by a different language, immersed in this very different culture. And, in fact, their curiosity has been piqued quite easily most of the time. The biggest challenge has been in encouraging reflection on these experiences without falling victim to overscheduling or overemphasis. Our primary hope was to make sure this experience was powerful for the kids...without being overpowering. And so we have tried to remember all the while that they are just 9 and 6 and so need some good ole lazing around time, screen time, and goofy brother time.

If I had to enumerate our top priorities for their learning, I would sketch out the following list: (1) to get to know a very different way of life by living in it for a month; (2) to experience first hand radically different standards of living from their own; (3) to learn how to find answers to the questions that arise when living in a new place or traveling; (4) to have what some call an 'othering experience' i.e., to feel what it's like to live where you look quite different from the majority of those around you; (5) to learn how to learn another language; (6) to learn to speak and understand some Spanish. (7) to learn some basics of the history, politics, geography, botany and zoology of Mexico (or at least of Chiapas).

If I had to sum up our approach, I would say we have, for the most part, just gone about our days with a sense of adventure and openness, keeping an eye out for the sorts of experiences described above, and waiting to see what sort of things spark their interests. We have, of course, also built in time for the more 'formal' parts of their education--i.e., to ensure that they keep up with the curriculum at school so they are up to speed with their classes when they return. Kristin has already discussed some of their experience in the neighborhood and their experiences learning Spanish. In what follows I hope to capture just a bit of what we've been up to and highlight a few key moments. It will, of necessity, only skim the surface of the experiences they've been having.

"Somewhere Else"
On the very first day in Tapachula we went to the Albergue shelter. The boys got involved in digging around in the dirt and exploring the area and seeking snacks from the store up front, but I think they were pretty stunned by what they saw. The place really is something to behold. It is a one story concrete structure with fairly plain looking rooms, a central open air area, a classroom, administrative office, an examination room, several work areas and numerous sleeping rooms. In the common areas they met people from Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, people in wheelchairs (donated, I'm told, with help from Maria Shriver) or on crutches, people with missing arms, people with severe shoulder burns, with mostly missing or damaged teeth....people who greeted them with passionate, warm smiles. When we explained what the shelter did, Mahlon asked, "Wait, I don't understand. Why can't they just go to a hospital? Why can't they get help somewhere else?" In trying to answer, the importance of the question hit me hard. I tried this: "Well, those 'somewhere elses' are only there because someone decided to make them. Hospitals are what they are because some people decided to build them. And the people who run the hospitals also decide how to give health care. And sometimes they decide that certain people can't stay there. Sometimes it's because they can't pay. Sometimes it's because they're not from this country. But when they can't stay in a hospital, either they go nowhere, or someone like Dona Olga creates a new place to help them. That's what the Albergue is." Baxter: "Where will they go when they are better?" Kristin, "Most likely, they will try again to catch a train north."

"Unusual"
As Kristin pointed out in her post, traveling around with three little blondies draws attention to us. We get many request for photos, comments about hair, and that sort of thing.

Of course, being 6"4' and 6"2 doesn't exactly make us exactly inconspicuous.

Tapachula is a very international city, in that there are many people from Central America and South America here, but we see very few people who "look like us." In fact, Juliana is the only other American I have met. And besides her and the three (now, two) Germans who work at the shelter, everyone else I have met is from Mexico, Guatamela, Nicargua or El Salvidor.

The other day at the market, when Baxter was spending an incredibly long time examining some plastic Transformer-esque figurines trying to decide which he would buy, Mahlon and I realized that we had become the object of the stares of two women. "Ever have the feeling you're being watched?" I asked. "Yeah, it has never felt so unusual having white skin. I never really thought about it until now..." The kid really has a knack for articulating the deep lessons. Transformers, indeed.

Baxter pitching in a kick ball game
(click for a larger image)

Mahlon with the neighborhood kids,
waiting in line for his turn at bat

Mahlon and Baxter with the neighbors playing
on the local outdoor, public Xbox game
(1 peso buys you 8 minuts---Thanks Gabby!)

"Having"
Both boys, but Mahlon in particular, have a growing awareness of disparities of wealth and opportunity. He's asking a lot of questions about how much money people make here, how that compares with people in America, about why people want to get to America, about why they can't. He is seeing the inside of the neighbors' houses. He is seeing what playgrounds and neighborhoods look like. He is not sure what to make of it all but, as Kristin pointed out in her earlier post, he is getting a bit self-conscious about how many things he has and is feeling a bit uncomfortable about the disparities he sees. He is a bit embarrassed, in particular, that Baxter seems so interested in buying little plastic toys whenever possible. They both seem to note the prices of things constantly, pointing out the unbelievably cheap ("a large bottle of water, only 11 pesos..that'd be like 4 bucks at home!") to what seems absurdly expensive ("a soccer jersey that cost 1000 pesos. A thousand pesos?! Who would buy that!!?").

It's tricky knowing how to "parent" in these situations. Perhaps the hardest is interacting with the really young kids who seem ever-present on the streets selling candies, offering to shine shoes, etc. Julianna told us most of these children are brought into town from neighboring Guatemala and work for an adult who 'organizes' their work. It's heartbreaking. The other day, one little boy came up offering to shine our shoes. Mahlon, Tula, Kristin and I were all wearing sandles. But he looked at Baxter's cowboy boots. Baxter got embarassed and shy and said no. But about 10 minutes later, he asked Kristin about the boy. Kristin explained the situation and how the he probably didn't go to school, that he came from the same place Mateo and Sofia (Baxter's cousins) were born, that an adult had probably sent him out to earn some money. Baxter struggled with what was clearly a swirl of embarassment and compassion. Then he braved up, walked over, digging in his pocket.

This picture simply twists my heart in so many ways I don't even know how to look at it.

In light of all this, I just answer the questions as best I can, provide them with facts I know, reflect back the feelings they're having, and point out that I don't yet have any answers to the biggest, hardest of these questions.

"Religion"
Both boys seem struck by the prevalence of Catholic iconography in the house here, at every restaurant, in every taxi... "Why all the pictures of Jesus?" "Why does someone want so many pictures of a guy on a cross?" "Why so much blood on him in that picture?" "If I see one more Jesus..." "Who's the Emperatriz de America"?

I can understand their surprise and we're trying to help them understand the role of the images, the stories behind them, the role the church plays here in people's lives, in social justice movements, etc.

Mahlon seems mostly puzzled and a little annoyed. Baxter seems fascinated by it all. The other night in a restaurant in Union Juarez, the Bax called me over to look a huge, brightly lit, very graphic crucifixion scene. He asked me to sit down, then he sat on my lap and asked about a 1000 question. Why the thorns? Why the cut in his side? Why the nails? Who did that to him? Why? Did he die? Did he go to heaven? How's heaven work? Again, I just answer the questions as best I can, provide the facts I know, reflect back the feelings he's having, and point out that I don't yet have any answers to the biggest, hardest of these questions.

"Comparisons"
The main difference the kids have noted, beyond the observations about about wealth, religion, and skin color, have to do with (a) public safety, (b) pest control, and (c) littering habits. The word "sketchy" gets thrown around quite a bit, usually referring to a driving habits, random holes in the sidewalk, cables dangling from utility poles, metal poles sticking out of the ground, and the like. They are appalled when they see people dropping trash on the street and they are at once thrilled and horrified by the general lack of car seats and seat belts.

"Service"
The boys have been very interested in figuring out a way to help at the shelter. Baxter's first idea was to raise money and he set up a Jugo de Naranja stand outside our house. He raised about 50 pesos for Dona Olga but realized that wasn't going to be quite the contribution he wanted it to be.

They played with the idea of working at the bakery at the shelter (to help roll dough and, of course, to sample the products) or with painting. Yesterday we went there to work on helping assemble some of the items they make to sell in order to raise money; however the shelter was out of materials so they helped me teach English instead.

That was an amazing experience, worthy of a full blog post later.

We've been following the advice of Baxter's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Schey, who asked simply that he keep a writing journal while he's here. So, every day, he writes 1-3 pages. On the top 1/3 of the page, he draws a picture at the top of something that happened that day, and on the bottom 2/3 he writes about it. When he's done, I sit with him and he tells me what he wrote and I write, underneath his words, the "grown-up" words. This method, of encouraging the kids to just write, to spell what they can and do their best with what they can't works amazingly well because he can write things that interest him. I usually just write the word correctly under his words and, when he asks, will explain how it's spelled. But mostly he watches how I write it and will figure out the orthography later.

A post on the rains in Tapachula

A post on a walk for ice cream

He is really fascinated by Mexico. He stares out the taxi window on every single trip and just says, time and again, "Mexico is so cool."

That said, He is less than excited about the food, however, though he really likes quesadillas and several of the chicken dishes. Breakfasts were the highlight for a while, though he grew tired of the standard scrambled egg fare (even when they started making his without all the sauce, onions, etc). Now he gets an occasional variation: Dona Olga bought a giant box of CocoPuffs the other day, to his great delight, and the other day we had an amazing pancake breakfast. Says Baxter, "Myra is the third best pancake maker in the world. First is Aunt Jenny. Second, Grandmom. Third is Myra. Dad, you're now fourth." (Sigh.)

For the first week here I worked with Mahlon in the mornings on math. He wanted to get better at adding and subtracting fractions, so we worked on that quite a bit. We also reviewed what he had recently learned about electricity and I think we extended his understanding a bit about motors, how lights work, how to close a circuit and how houses get electricity. I read him some fairly long passages about Mexican history, Teotihuacan, Mayans, Aztecs, and that sort of thing. He was interested, especially when he learned that some of the more gruesome aspects (ritual blood letting and sacrifices) and when we learned that Tula was the capitol of the Toltecs. He also really liked the pyramids and he drew some pictures of them.

After the first week, though, I realized that I was being a bit too Professorish and decided to do some more hands-on learning for these history and geography lessons. So the other day when walked past a store that had really amazing school supplies I bought a bunch of supplies (paints, markers, etc) and several kits for making styrofoam pyramids and a styrofoam map of Mexico. We built the pyramids (Bax did an Mayan pyramid and Mahlon made an Aztec one. While they worked, I read a bit more about the places these pyramids and temples are found and told some more of the stories about how they lived.

When we were done, both boys really wanted to bring the pyramids home but they were too big, so we donated them to the house. A few days later, we were going to paint all the states on the foam Mexico, but Mahlon rightly pointed out that such a project was insanely complicated. So many states! Such long names! So we just painted them (by patriotic coincidence, the boys chose green and red paints!) and indicated the places we'd been and the places we were going (Mexico City, Tapachula, San Cristobal de la Casas, Palenque, Cancun) and the borders (Pacific Ocean, California, Texas, Gulf of Mexico, Guatemala). The results, I think, are pretty cool.
Mahlon observed that if you rotate Mexico ninety degrees counterclockwise it looks very much like a sea horse.

They boys have also Skyped with their classmates back in Pennsylvania and have been contributing to the blog.

Mahlon worked hard today to find out answers to the forty or so questions his classmates sent him (more on that soon). These experiences have been fantastic. The kids in Mahlon's class were so excited and he really loved telling them his tales. Baxter's session went well, too, though he was a bit disappointed that he didn't get to talk to his teacher more so we've setting up a one-on-one skype session with her tomorrow.

Also, we've been trying to get them on the piano whenever possible and we found a place that lets us use their practice piano for 20 pesos per kid per hour.

Mrs. O'Dor, Miss Castagna, Mrs. Shirk (Mahlon's teachers), Mrs. Schey (Baxter's teacher), Mrs Ziemba (who helped Mrs. Schey skype) and Mrs. Ensminger (their piano teacher) have been so supportive of all of this.

We are grateful for that and for the openness and warmth that has been extended to us by all of our friends, neighbors and teachers here in Tapachula who have taught our children so much.

Reihman Kids in Tapachula

2009-04-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I took Tula on another walk in the neighborhood. She requests this almost daily, enjoying both the exercise as well as the large following she has gained here locally. I think it's a combination of her fortuitous name ("Tula de Tapachula!" or better, "Chula de TapaTula!", where "chula" is a local word for "cutie") and her overall, well, cuteness. People reach across sidewalks to touch her hair ("pelo de oro!"); ask to hold her while someone takes their picture together (she rarely complies--though did so here because the bounce house had her a little disoriented, I think);

and spontaneously buy her treats--which, of course, she cannot refuse. She is a favorite of the children in Infonavit Las Vegas, our neighborhood, and I was reminded of this on our walk as her name was called again and again through metal bars and windows by smiling children as they prepared for school.

We are starting to come to terms with the fact of our departure. It is hard to believe that we will leave in less than three days for our journey across southern Mexico. In the less than three weeks we have been in Tapachula, we have managed to settle very comfortably into the "Pearl of Soconusco," and the adventure has turned out to be even more amazing than I could have imagined. The boys have demonstrated themselves to be incredibly open to new experiences: new language, new food (though usually only an obligatory nibble, as was the case with this plate of iguana and its accompanying vegetable side dish, a.k.a. Deep Fried Mop);

new customs, new friends, new levels of heat and humidity.... They are soaking it all up, and occasionally they drop hints of the new awareness they are acquiring. Yesterday we packed a bag of the toys they have collected while in Mexico to share with the two children who are living at the shelter, and who have none. I suggested that they consider giving the toys away, if the kids wanted them. While initially reluctant to consider this, once Greg had described to them the conditions in which these kids live--one set of clothing, a single board game for entertainment, no school (no one to take them), etc--they immediately jumped into the project and by the time we left for the shelter had two backpacks filled with toys and clothing. Mahlon spent some time reflecting on the couch after that, was overheard mumbling something about feeling "weird, having so many toys at home." No doubt.

The evenings this past week with the neighborhood kids have also been transformative for them. Our boys' initial shyness has completely disappeared, and now they spend several hours every night running around with about twenty other kids between the ages of 5 and 17. Last night I arrived home late to find them both on the sidewalk across the street from Dona Olga's--Baxter involved in a duel with some other kid on DS's, and Mahlon in a furious game of "hot potato," where the potato was the deflated rubber ball that had been a gift from Gabi, et. al., a couple of nights ago. (Ah, the too-well-loved ball. I think that poor, 3 peso ball survived about 17 games of either soccer or basquetball before giving up the ghost.)

Here they are, within minutes of hitting the bed, after 4 hours of ball games and craziness in the 'hood until 10 pm. There's no work like Kid Work.

Up until this past Monday, Mahlon and Baxter had been formally learning Spanish for an hour a day. Their first teacher, who had some long, utterly unpronounceable name and who had asked them to call him "Nacho," instead, had been coming to the home of their nanny to teach them. That was working beautifully. Nacho was fun, funny, drew elaborate pictures to illustrate what he was teaching them, and, helpfully, could (and would) speak English in a pinch. This week a new teacher arrived, and while she had extensive background in the conjugation of Spanish verbs, she apparently had little awareness of the special needs of goofy boys. She did bring cut out pictures of the Simpsons to illustrate her lesson but this unfortunately backfired, since, according to Baxter, "Nacho did the same thing last week. And he DREW them. HIMSELF!" Possibly in pen, or perhaps watercolor. Mahlon was quick to report that she did not smile for the whole lesson. And she left them them terrified of using any English, though I have not heard the details yet on how she managed this.

Needless to say, that lasted only once. When we mentioned their disappointment to Myra (the "adopted" daughter of Dona Olga), she offered enthusiastically to teach them in the afternoons, which we have done for the past two days. Yesterday the kids spent about an hour writing in names of body parts on a tracing of Baxter. The day before, they made cards with the names of furniture, etc. Both days' lessons now decorate the house, and Greg and I are kicking ourselves for not doing that 2 weeks ago. Better late than never, I suppose.

Documentary about Albergue

2009-04-01T08:32:00.001-07:00

We learned yesterday that a group of Argentinean Filmmakers visited the Albergue shelter a few months ago. Here's a link to a brief documentary that they posted on YouTube. (Note to English readers: it's in Spanish, but a video's worth a thousand palabras).

The Cool Tarantula (Baxter's Post #3)

2009-03-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

[Baxter dictating to Greg]

When my mom was at work the other day, she saw a dead tarantula. Tarantulas are creepy spiders that can poison people. It's hard to tell how big it is from this picture, but I think it was about the size of a small Pokemon ball.

Tarantulas can bite their fangs into other animals. They eat reptiles like lizards, grasshoppers. Some tarantulas can live up to 30 years. If you want to learn more about tarantulas visit
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/cgi-bin/paint/fssaukf/subjects/arachnids/spider/Tarantulaprintout.shtml

-Baxter

Bug World (Mahlon's Post 3)

2009-03-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

One really cool thing about Mexico is that there is such tropical weather that geckos and bugs like ants and beetles come into our house all the time and just wander around like people! Usually it is really cool to see bugs around the house but sometimes it is not cool at all when you see an ant crawling on the top of your bedroom. If somebody would look at one spot they might see three geckos at once. So if you like tropical weather and interesting species, come to Mexico!

A Gecko on the ceiling:

A close-up of the Gecko:

el dia extraordinario, part I

2009-03-31T05:22:00.000-07:00

[Kristin here, signed in as Greg, I think]
I awoke a few minutes ago in the usual way--much too early, before everyone else, the sun rising....and to the sound of some critter landing on the metal, corrugated roof that serves as a ceiling in our upstairs abode at Dona Olga's. It lands with a thud that quickly becomes the sound of smallish sharp nails scrambling to gain purchase on the slick, graded sheet above, unsuccessfully, I think, for the sound rarely lasts more than a minute before the frantic pawing ceases abruptly. My best guess is that the animal is a squirrel, though in my early morning mind it more often becomes a baby pterydactyl, wounded, having fallen from its circles above el Tacana, the nearby volcano.

Today I tried to go back to sleep, but was unable to as I remain haunted by yesterday's events.

That day also started out in the usual way: baby pterydactyl on the roof; Spanish homework in the morning; breakfast (some amazing meat dumplings Myra made from leftovers we had brought back from Union Juarez); the truck ride with Miguel to el Albergue; acupuncture on a few people there until I ran out of needles... But there's where the ritual ends. At about noon (actually, at about 12:30, which passes for noon here if someone tells you they will arrive at noon but doesn't until half an hour later) the local acupuncturist arrived at the shelter. Her arrival was the culmination of several days of saga which I will not go into now, but essentially involved some serious detective work in a another language, a trip to a mountain pueblo to find an aging acupuncturist who had died, and then a few phone calls to his children, both of whom had learned the art of acupuncture from him, and both of whom now live about 10 minutes from where I am staying in Tapachula.

Her name is Mariana Torsi, and here she is with her baby of 4 months and her companion whose name I missed:

Mariana is one of the children of Doctor Torsi, who came from France to Tapachula after learning all there is to know about acupuncture there.

Historical aside: actually, "all there is to know" turns out to be a lot. The French were very influential in the history of acupuncture in the West. Many of the great works were first translated from the Chinese by French enthusiasts early in the last century. Among the early French pioneers was a man named Georges Soulie de Morant (1878-1955) who, during a long career in China as a French ambassador, apparently compiled the entire 5,000 year old theory of acupuncture for dissemination back in France. Much of the activity among French intellectuals in the field centered around this borrowed material (see http://www.physio-centre.net/cms/index.php?page=33 for more details). According to Mariana, the late Doctor Torsi actually studied under "Solie de Morat," who I positive must have Soulie de Morant, whose name appears in various permutations when you Google the guy. My own acupuncture teacher, Dr. Joseph Helms, also learned acupuncture in France, though much later, and from Maurice Mussat, who I'll bet a gazillion pesos knew Georges Soulie de Morant.

The bottom line is, this woman knows acupuncture, learned it from her father who in turn learned from one of the French originals, and was now standing beside me in a Mexican shelter for injured migrants holding a baby of 4 months. Julianna was there assisting with translation which turned out to be a good thing, since Mariana was dropping pearls of wisdom like they were over-ripe mangos, with me under the tree with a too-small basket. She had offered to bring me some needles this past weekend when my search for a needle vendor led me all over Chiapas and back again and ended with her and her brother (I promise to tell the whole story somewhere else!), as well as to watch me practice and to share what she could. My fantasy, however, was that she would also decide--once she saw the migrants and the great need for her services--to start volunteering there herself. This vision is of course rooted in my own great need to provide something lasting here at Albergue, something that extends far beyond my own skills and availability and that is rooted where it should be rooted, in a sustainable way, in this community. The utility of acupuncture here--the great physical and emotional suffering, along with the very accessible energetic templates of the persons here--have me convinced that this is what is needed.

Julianna later remarked on how strange it was to be unable to translate some words which I seemed to recognize immediately: "vejiga-sesenta," or Bladder-60; "el governador-veinte," or Governor Vessel-20; "estomago-trentiseis," or Stomach-36....a few of the big, energy-moving points in the body. It was way-cool.

But how time flies when you are researching the history of acupuncture and translating from the French! I am soon expected across the street, to treat the woman who lives there for smoking cessation with auricular acupuncture. This saga will have To Be Continued. For now, I will leave you with half of the day's punch line, which is that Mariana did not offer her services, as she is recovering currently from a difficult cesarean section and likely needs the Chong Mo addressed with some serious needling. She did, however, spontaneously volunteer the services of her brother, Carlos Torsi, who I plan to call today. I am hoping to compile all of the treatments I have done on the migrants thus far for his use when following up on my patients. In that hesitant way that one gets excited about an arranged time of meeting but knows (hopes? knows? hopes?) it will occur later, I am deliriously excited.

Greg's First Post

2009-03-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've been chided and called out by my family for failing to post anything to the blog since I set it up two weeks ago. A few things I really want to write about are the amazing impact this trip is having on my children; my complex love-hate relationship with the Spanish language (so beautiful! so many accursed verb endings!); ruminations on our neighborhood and the amazing children we've been getting to know; the role technology is playing in our communications and learning here; my experiences in the city; and our discovery of a small coffee farm where the man and woman who own the place took an hour to show us their coffee trees and teach us about the equipment they use to ferment, dry and roast the beans. But to get things started I'm going to offer a quick overview of what my days look like here, together with a few choice images that have captured my eye during my explorations of the city.

My days start with getting the boys involved in some form of home-schooly type activity (the other day Mahlon worked on fractions, Bax wrote in his journal, and both worked on building models of Mayan and Azetic temples). Once they're rolling, I spend about 2-3 hours online doing various work-related things.

Me, in our sitting area, so hard at work I'm blurry:

We live in the south-west of the city, in an area called Infonavit Las Vegas. "Infonavit" is an acronym that stands for "Instituto del Fondo Nacional para la Vivienda de los Trabajadores." Which means "Institute for the National Fund for Workers' Housing." It is basically what we in the states call a government-funded housing project.

The houses in this area are all built of concrete, are 1-2 stories tall, are set very close to each other, and are nearly all painted in stunning bright colors.

After breakfast at around 10am, the kids and I take a cab
to the north-east of the city to Mahlon, Baxter and Tula's nanny lives. After getting them settled, I walk towards the center of the city, taking a different route each day. Along the way, I encounter many things both beautiful and puzzling. Some examples follow:

- Zapateria Frank (="Frank's Zapateria"= "Frank's shoe store" where I can only hope the Mothers of Invention frontman bought his brown shoes footwear):

-A revolutionary rooster:
-Strolling musicians:

-Restaurants with Confucian virtues:

-Hopped up VWs:-Gorgeous posters:

-Many, many small stores--the most common of which, I've noticed, are devoted to selling one of the following types of thing: cell phones, eyeglasses, clothing, auto parts, tools, paper supplies or food:-Emblems celebrating the town:

Eventually, after 10 blocks or so, I end up at the Parque Miguel Hidalgo,
where I sit to have coffee, do some reading, then prep for my Spanish class, which runs from 1-2. I then walk back to the nanny's and either take a taxi with the kids to pick up Kristin and head home for a 3:00 lunch or stay in the center city and explore with the kids. I spend my evenings playing with the kids and the neighborhood kids (yesterday was a long game of soccer) and then, after a late dinner (around 8 or 9 here) I usually get on my laptop to catch up on some work, work on my Spanish a bit, then head off to bed around 11 or 12.

More soon...

"el gripe"--or, just one more thing I never learned in medical school

2009-03-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

So I had always sort of chuckled when looking at pictures in Spanish language textbooks in that chapter that describes las enfermedades, or illness. All of them mention "el gripe," which has been translated for me as "the flu," and sometimes "a really bad cold," and without exception there is always a cartoon of some guy looking miserable with a rag around his head and his feet in a big tub of hot water. This image has always perplexed me, as I have never used or seen used such a remedy for anything other than a warm-up to a pedicure (and not even that, since Kevin Winthrop told me about that little town on the coast of California where all the women developed massive ulcerations from soaking their toes in tubs infested with mycobacterium....). At any rate, I had sort of chalked up the images to artistic license mixed with some long-lost folk remedy that nobody uses anymore.

How wrong I was.

Apparently, el gripe is well known in these parts. And believe it or not, the only solution is to put your feet into boiling hot water followed by a vigorous rubbing with a warm towel, application of Vick's vapo-rub, and finally, socks. No part may be omitted if you want to chase out el gripe. Here is the rationale for the above, and a description of why it works:

In hot climates (read: this one...did I mention it was about 102 degrees today?), there is the danger of overheating one's head, which leads to a red face or upper body rash, a head ache, lethargy, and a cough. The risk is hugely increased when one walks around barefooted on cool tiles, which we all did immediately upon arrival and for about 2 days therafter--until convinced that we were all succombing, one by one and through nothing other than our own recklessness, to el gripe. Baxter was the first to develop the cough which, of course, we thought nothing of: he has asthma, he didn't get enough sleep during our travels, of course his asthma was going to flare, etc. More albuterol; more advair. Only, it wasn't working for his cough. He wasn't getting worse, but he also wasn't getting better. Enter Cougher #2, Tula. Now, she does not technically have asthma, but as we are a bit gun-shy when it comes to that particular ailment, I have not hesitated to administer any and all of her brother's medications when the need arises, say, when she has a cough. So I did. And they did NOTHING. She, like her brother, did not seem to be coughing from asthma. Neither did she have other symptoms that would lead me to believe she was coughing from a typical upper respiratory illness. It was at this point that I began to search for Other Explanations.

Dona Olga, with whom we are living, had been mentioning something out of the corner of her mouth that I had failed to understand for 2 days, so I finally pressed her for an explanation. She had been admonishing us for not wearing our "chanclas," or flimsy little house sandals. This and only this was the way to prevent "el gripe," which in essense was described to me as "all the heat leaving the feet and ascending to the head, where it causes a cough and red face and a rash." The hot water feet remedy, it was explained, was a way to "pull the hot back down out of the head," thus curing the cough and eliminating the rash....

Now, to my western ears this of course sounds like craziness. But I am struck by how similar in concept this explanation is to that of "rebellious qi." In traditional Chinese acupuncture, "rebellious qi" is any qi that does not stay where it is supposed to stay, or travel through the body along the usual routes. For example, "rebellious qi" is accepted to be the reason behind hiccoughs, belching, and some forms of dizziness. It is also an accepted etiology for coughing--especially for coughing that occurs upon coming inside after running around in cold air. Interestingly enough, the cure for this flavor of "rebellious qi" is to warm the KI-1 (Kidney-1) point with a lit moxa stick until the cough subsides. Where is KI-1? Well, I am glad you asked. It happens to be the only point on the body located on the plantar surface of the FOOT.

So, of course we lined the kids up on Day 3 with a bucket of hot water and put them through their el gripe treatment paces. Dona Olga actually did the honors, and while I was somewhat mortified that she got to be the one to rub away three days of el grime from my childrens' feet, I was grateful for the private tutorial from an el gripe expert.

Tula and Baxter have not coughed since.

I will also mention, for those of you public health folks out there (and you know who you are), that we did, in fact, all get our own pairs of chanclas the following day, and have been wearing them religiously since. Mahlon and Baxter like to remind Tula with the following song cribbed and altered from Avatar, called "Chakras:"

"Chanclas, chanclas, everybody loves chanclas...."

A day trip to the volcano--El Tacana

2009-03-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

So we made it safely to and back from el Tacana today, and the trip was well worth the effort and the stress over whether we were going to destroy the doctor's car. (We did not.) Greg was quite liberated by his position in the driver's seat. Whole new vistas open up when one is not confined to combi routes and so forth, and we spent a good deal of time off the beaten track. Of course, the usual sibling behavior emerges soon after settling into the familiar surroundings of a car interior, and it wasn't long until the squabbling became annoying and we had to expel one of our members and make him jog alongside. As you can see, he was a pretty good sport about it.

So el Tacana is a giant dormant volcano about an hour's drive from the city of Tapachula. The road there consists of long stretches of lush, green lowlands, followed by winding narrow roads along steeper terrain through small villages, and finally you get to tiny pueblos with mostly rocky dirt roads that dead end into trails that head up the mountain. In the lowlands are several old coffee plantations, or finchas, which were built mostly by Germans, Chinese, and Japanese. Some of these have been turned into boutique hotels, others into restaurants like the one we ate lunch at in San Domingo: "la Casa Grande." The grounds were lovely and contained a small, refreshing pool that we quickly emptied of locals with our boisterous game of "daddy throws the boy as far he can." The lunch was good, if a little stale. I suspect it was reheated from el desayuno, which is what we get for eating las comidas at odd hours (noon instead of 2 or 3pm). Mahlon and Baxter were taken a little by surprise when their hamburguesas, ordered "solamente con queso," arrived without the "carne."

We continued up from there towards the looming mountain, which disappeared and reappeared from behind wispy wandering clouds as we approached. The route between small towns seemed to be perched upon a ridge between mountains, with steep drop-offs into thick jungle on either side. There was a bit of nausea in the back seat, but no follow-through, over this fact. Here is the obligatory foot photo with el Tacana in the foreground--for my old compadres who know such a shot is required with every road trip.

Our ultimate destination was Union Juarez, a small, friendly town about an hour up from Tapachula. Apparently one can hike on from there for the 2- day ascent to the top, with an overnight stop along the way in a hut. I don't think I need to add that we did not opt for the overnight hut stay on this trip (or, as Aragorn would say, "Today is not that day!"). We did however see several people (mostly old abuelos, or grampas, actually) heading up on foot, each of them wearing very little and carrying a large machete. Here is a picture of one of them. His name is Julio. He was happy to pose for a picture, but he insisted on buttoning up his shirt and he refused to hold his machete. I had to take a step back to get it in the picture. Julio......

When I asked him why he was hiking up the volcano, he said because he liked it. Fair enough.

Many of the houses in Union Juarez impressed me for the obvious pride of ownership. Most are neat and clean in appearance, even those which clearly are home to families in great poverty.

Many, like the one below, have family emblems or crests over the front door announcing the surname of the family living there.

Several were home to gardeners who, making the most of a temperate and moist climate, used plants in interesting ways to decorate their abodes. Here is my favorite:

We stopped for home made ice creams at a family-run coffee business (more on this later, I am sure, by our resident coffee addict--er, expert), and enjoyed a spontaneous tour as well as a small dog they keep in the back, who--according to the boys--could "jump about 5 feet in the air!"

There is much more to be said about el Tacana, but I will leave you with this thought. See this picture of the local school? With the basketball court overlooking a volcano in the distance and a giant precipice in the foreground? Mahlon's comment: "I bet they lose a lot of balls."

Yes, perhaps they do. But the real question is, where do those balls end up--in Guatemala or in Mexico? Hmm. To Be Continued....

Baxter's Post #2

2009-03-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

[Baxter talking, Dad typing]

"Last weekend we went to the beach.

We got a lot of sunburns. It was fun. The waves were really big and the water was warm."

"At the beach, we bought chips.

They had Star Wars Clone Wars cards inside."

"This is a picture of my Captain Cody from Star Wars Clone Wars card.

I got it in a trade with my brother."

"Yesterday, we went to 'Central Musical de Tapachula,' which is a music store and upstairs they have pianos you can use.

It cost 20 pesos for an hour. I played some of my songs. I liked getting to play piano again. "

"We were walking down the street and we saw a big guy in a costume.

My dad said he would give us a peso each if we hugged him, so we did. "

"Last night we went to play soccer with some of the kids in our neighborhood. We played soccer at a park on a basketball court. I got a goal!

After that we went to play Xbox on a video game machine outside one of the kid's house. It cost 1 peso per game. The kids were really nice. I think they let me get the soccer goal. They also gave me and my brother the first couple of turns on the Xbox. "

"Then I played with a really kind girl named Gabby.

My dad tried to pay for the games but Gabby said no and she paid for them all. "

Infonavit Las Vegas

2009-03-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

We are living with a family in a sector at the southern end of town called "Infonavit Las Vegas." Having driven all over Tapachula by cab and combi at this point, I think this is still my favorite section. The houses are smallish, colorful, and squished up against one another.

The streets are crooked and bumpy and often under-paved, some of them even dirt, so cars drive nice and slowly through them. (Any stretches of paved road of any length in this town are peppered with thin but deadly speed bumps that require you to almost come to a stop to avoid blowing out your tires, which also really cuts down on the speed of traffic.)

We have numerous kids living around us. David, on our right, often throws a ball around with the boys before dinner. But last night marked the first major immersion into our neighborhood nightlife. The boys had been out all afternoon with Greg on a mission to find a piano to practice on, and arrived back at the house a little before 6. Tula and I had been hanging on the street corner, a couple of gringas looking for fun, and had encountered some young Tapachultecas who were enjoying Tula's antics. One of them, a 12 year old girl named Gabi, bought us all ice creams from the small tienda that one of the neighbors runs at odd hours out of her home, and we all enjoyed the tastes as well as the sounds of words like "cacahuate," or peanut.

The boys and Greg soon became involved in a game of pick-up that started out as basketball but morphed, over the course of the next couple of hours, into soccer and then, finally, as everything always does, no matter where you are apparently, into screen time (another neighbor, this one with a mini-arcade outside their door, hosted that group experience). The boys apparently have another date for tonight, "a las seis y media."

So I am up early today--6 o'clock, which even beats Mahlon. The morning was clear and almost crisp, which is all the more enjoyable given that within 2 hours os so the sweltering heat will descend upon us and leave us wondering why we brought so many long sleeves (oh yes....something about mosquitoes...?). Today we are going to drive to the nearby volcano, which this morning is particularly clear from our window.

From this view, you can see the car that the doctor from the shelter lent me last night after I treated him and his wife with acupuncture. I think it must have left them both in a state of major disorientation, because the trip is not short and consists of, I have beeen told, a very winding and treacherous road up a steep incline with some crazy passing and lane-changing rituals, but there's acupuncture for you. Perhaps in addition to my usual caveats for the next 24 hours ("no beer, no ice cream, no sex, no bamboo shoots," etc.) I should have listed, "no rash lending practices." In any event, we are delighted by their generosity and plan to take full advantage of having our own wheels and not being wedded to schedules of buses without seatbelts.

Mahlon's Post #2

2009-03-27T08:49:00.001-07:00

It is kind of hard living with another family because you have to follow all of their family rules and you have to be quiet and good.But it is also really cool to be made breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and also sometimes really good and tasty snacks. These are the easy and hard things when you live in a different family's house.

Tula's Post #1

2009-03-26T06:01:00.000-07:00

Here is Tula riding with Mahlon in the backseat of one of Tapachula's ubiquitous taxi cabs. None have seatbelts, nor room for a carseat, even if they did. All drive fast. (A stop sign here seems to be a reminder to lightly honk your horn as you blow through it.) The good news: no injuries yet!

Here is a chicken that Tula and I encountered on one of our walks (see more walk events below).

One afternoon we visited the seemingly always deserted park down the street. Tula, who has not yet witnessed what see-saws can do for two people, enjoyed experimenting with a one-person approach.

Tula has been really interested in taking walks in our little neighborhood, Infonavit Las Vegas. Here are some pictures she wanted to share (okay, here are the cutest pictures ever that I couldn't help uploading).

Question: "What are you doing, Tula?"

"I am swinging!" [This is the more-frequented of the nearby neighborhood parks. On this particular night, there were lots of other kids hanging out and we made some friends. Strangely, two of the four little boys we met had names that sounded almost exactly like our boys'--"Max" and "Mailon." They were universally astounded at the size of their American counterparts, both of whom were much younger than they. I have been using the phrase "mis hijos gigantes" a lot, which goes over well.]

"Sweeping." [This is a nap. It used to happen quite regularly, but now it only shows itself on occasional taxi rides home from Marisa's house, where the kids stay while Greg and I work. It's kind of becoming a problem for our afternoon aventuras.]

"I'm bwushing my teeth." [...and Mom's hoping she remembered to rinse that brush with potable water after the last brushing....]

"Spinning around for my baby, baby, baby baby baby." [Read: "losing interest in this post, this post, this post....." More later!]

el trabajo de Kristin: la acupuntura para los migrantes

2009-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

The shelter: Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor para los Migrantes y Pobres... and the small tienda in the front.

The small clinic at the shelter wherein one might find any number of items (anti-fungal creams, eye drops, a select few antibiotics, all the donated meds I brought along, and many bags of normal saline.... some random donations, but mostly things purchased by Dona Olga from her own pocket). Note to self: send extra nebulizer when I get home for use with the as-of-now unuseable liquid albuterol.

Ruben, a double amputee, watches as I do a PENS treatment on his roommate. He was very helpful with some translations.

Roberto enjoys his ear needles.

So, I have been spending my mornings (read: after el desayuno and before las comidas, so between about 10 and 2) at the Albergue shelter for injured migrants. (For more background on this, please see their website www.alberguebuenpastor.org.mx, or better yet, the blog of Julianna Morris, who is another follower of this blog.) The migrants took some convincing to warm up to the idea of me sticking a bunch of needles in their ears and extremities. But my early adapters have had such nice experiences, and word of mouth is a powerful thing. I am now finding that there are more and more takers every day. Today, por ejemplo, I was accosted on arrival by several at once, and could barely get to all interested folks before I had to skidaddle off to my Spanish lessons. Some pictures of my willing subjects are below. Of note, I am finding that folks here seem to respond really cleanly to acupuncture. That is to say, they seem to notice a pretty clear difference right away, even with conditions that have been with them awhile. They also seem to feel the arrival of "qi" much more quickly than their American counterparts. My interpretation is that folks here are a lot less emotionally and hence physically constricted here. (Either that or it's a lot hotter than in Pennsylvania. Qi does tend to like the heat.) The bottom line is that it has been extremely gratifying getting to work on the injured migrants and their families, and I think I am going to have to put in a rush order for some more needles.

This is Fernando relaxing with some ear needles. I am treating him for neuropathy and back pain that he has had for 5 years.

Manuel works in one of the small tiendas, or shops, that help fund the shelter. He himself is an amputee (fingers), but his biggest complaint is back pain. I am treating him with auricular acupuncture here.

More needles for Fernando.

Baxter's Post #1

2009-03-23T20:28:00.001-07:00

Baxter says:

These are Aztec dancers we saw in Mexico City. They were wearing feathers and on their ankles they had loud rattles that shook when they danced. All the stuff they were selling looked really cool.

I bought this necklace from the Aztec dancers. It's a circle with little spikes coming out of the edges. I really like it because of the spikes and because it was made by Aztecs.

We woke up one morning and there was a scorpion on the floor but it's dead now (my mom squished it).

I won an eagle piggy-bank at a fair (you can see it on the table here) but I dropped it and its head broke. But I set up an orange juice stand and used it to hold the money anyway. I made 35 pesos selling orange juice and I gave some of the money to the woman who runs the shelter where my mom is working.

On the weekend we went to a beach and at night the sunset looked really cool. We swam in the Pacific Ocean and rested in really comfy hammocks.

Mahlon's Post #1

2009-03-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is me when we first arrived in Mexico city and we are being registered as visitors of Mexico.As you can see we are in the very back of the line and I thought it would take over 3 hours to get to the front, luckily they arranged a better way, where some extra people came around the line and registered people. P.S. I was not really mad ,it was just a pose.

One day I woke up and decided to go sit on the couch but when my mom woke up she saw something moving on the floor in our room, the next thing we know is that the creature we saw was a scorpion!!! But before it could eat or sting us, my mom killed it with a couple swats with a book, so now I am really happy that it is dead.

What you are looking at right now is the most gross and disgusting medicine you will ever see in your life and I have to drink some of it every single week! The reason that we have to take this weekly is because it will prevent malaria in case we get bit by a mosquito that is carrying malaria which can be quite deadly. We also have to put DEET on at night to keep the bugs away..

The first 72 hours....

2009-03-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

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.