Swine flu!

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.

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)

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

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

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)

[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)

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: