Happy Adoption Day, CeCe!

On February 27, we celebrated Carolina’s adoption into our family.

One year ago, we met our little Carolina in a high-rise luxury apartment in Bogota; she was bundled all up in blue. She didn’t cry when Rosita, the director of Los Pisingos, put her in our arms – but John and I sure did. She just kind of took both of us in and seemed to decide immediately, “Well, I guess these are my two new parents.” She promptly fell asleep in John’s arms in the cab ride home.

A year after that life changing day, it was a normal day in Merida for us. John and I worked at our desk (we share a desk here), but we also did a couple of Carolina’s favorite things during the day: we took a dip in the pool before naptime, and we took a walk to the park at dusk and watched as people fed big flocks of pigeons … every time they took flight we’d get a half amused-half scared “wooooooo!” out of Carolina.

And to top of our one year anniversary as a family? Carolina’s favorite dinner, of course – pizza! As dessert, we got a small orange pastry cake that we shared as a family. Unlike at her first birthday party, Carolina dove right into the cake, and slowly but surely finished her piece. She loved it, and enjoyed her sugar high afterwards as well.

What we’ve decided this past year with Carolina: you can have your cake and eat it, too!

Behind Bars

John left last week to go to Texas for business, so CeCe and I had a couple of girl’s days, enjoying each other’s company as we explored the city, swam in our pool, and danced to music on the iPod.

And of course there was some excitement, too – mind you, the sort of excitement that would have never happened when John was working with me all day, every day in our little casa. It had to happen one of the three days he left town.

CeCe and I were waiting for the water guy to show up and deliver our big 20-liter jug of purified water. It was 2:00 and he was supposed to have come at 1:30. We were anxious for him to arrive because it was getting close to nap time, and we wanted to take a swim before going to bed. (It was hot, and CeCe loves the pool!) So after waiting, and waiting, I decided to take one last peek out my front door before getting into the pool.

Our doorway, by the way, is two-fold. There is a big heavy wooden door with a secure lock leading into our house. This door opens in the middle, but one side is always bolted shut with prongs that extend down into the cement floor, and up into the cement archway. Then there is a space of about 18 inches and an outer wrought iron gate that also latches in the middle and goes the full way, floor to top the arched entry way, of our door. Even though Merida is known for being the safest city in Mexico, we bought a padlock to put on the outer wrought iron door, just in case.

When I went out to see if the water guy was cycling his way down my street, the padlock was on the wrought iron gate. And as I peered out the gate to look, I heard an immediately disheartening “click” behind me. CeCe loves to close doors, and with that one little push she had managed to simultaneously lock me in AND lock me out. I was trapped between locked doors – without, you guessed it –keys.

I panicked. My thought process was something like: “John is in Texas. My nanny is gone for the day. I don’t know the phone number or last name of our landlord. I don’t have my keys. It’s so hot out here!” But most disturbing of all, by far? “CeCe is home alone, inside the house! What trouble can she get into?!?”

I tried to bang against the door to the house with my back and legs … to no avail. I couldn’t get a run at it because the space I was in was a mere 18 inches or so. Plus, all it did was make CeCe, who was sitting in the corner by the door, cry harder. So I took my case to the streets.

I flagged down an old guy on a bicycle as he slowly wheeled by, and was pretty blunt with him in Spanish. “I need help right now,” I said. “My baby locked me in here and she is alone in the house.” He looked at me like I was crazy, but agreed to help. He said he knew a locksmith who lived “right down the street” and would go and get him. Imagine that – it was almost too good to believe. But after about 10 minutes of waiting for him I thought it most certainly was too good to believe, so I flagged down another guy driving by in a car. He promised to call the cops.

As it turns out, I should have kept the faith in my friend on the bicycle, who returned with the locksmith as promised. The locksmith tried the outer padlock for about 10 minutes, as I talked to CeCe through window in the door. (Also covered in wrought iron, by the way, or I surely would have punched through that.) She could hear me and whimpered a bit occasionally, but didn’t move from her corner right by the door. He couldn’t pick the padlock (which, after I was freed, actually made me feel kind of good) and squeezed his arms through the iron gate to work on the door itself. He got that one in about 5 minutes. Thank God!

I scooped CeCe up – she was still in the corner. She was clutching one of John’s flip flops and was blotchy and red in the face from crying so much.

I thanked the men profusely, paid the locksmith his fee of 100 pesos (about $10) and gave my friend on the bicycle a tip of 50 pesos for delivering the godsend of a locksmith. The cops showed up about 10 minutes after I had been freed from my prison cell – two squad cars, lights a’flashing, four cops, no less. Immediately after we got back into our house, CeCe and I took that long awaited, much deserved swim.

And the water guy? He wheeled up at about 5 pm that day … about 3 ½ hours later than I had expected.

Make You a Deal

The other day a friend asked if we had done any “haggling” while in Mexico. After all, in Mexico you can haggle for anything anywhere: fresh produce at the market, artesania on the streets, even cab rides can be negotiable. But John told him, no, we really hadn’t haggled for anything yet. First off, we really haven’t done any shopping, and secondly, we were more than willing to pay the extra 20 cents to the woman at the market for our tomatoes.

But 0n Friday late afternoon, we had our first haggling experience. Shockingly, it was with a cop, and instead of paying him $80 “to pay our traffic ticket,” we ended up only paying him $40.

Let me back up a bit to explain. We rented a car on Friday late afternoon because we wanted to take a day trip on Saturday to Chichen Itza, a Mayan ruin located about 1.5 hours from Merida by car, just named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Because we got the car on Friday night, we figured we would take advantage of our newfound mobility and do a little grocery shopping.

On our way to the grocery store, we encountered a traffic circle or “turnabout” (there are a ton of these in Mexico). Since we do not have traffic circles in Minnesota, they are a bit scary for us – seems like cars just whiz around them, flying off in different directions with very little method to their madness. But in order to get to our grocery store, we had to enter it, and once you enter one, you have no choice but to continue. We wanted to make a left, and did. (Though it seemed like a clumsy left – the whole idea behind the traffic circles is that they are supposed to be pretty fluid.)

Immediately we heard the short “blip, blip” of a cop. John checked the rearview mirror, and sure enough there was one behind us on a motorcycle.

John got out to talk to the cop, explaining that he was very sorry, but he didn’t know all of the traffic laws in Mexico, especially where traffic circles were concerned. The cop listened politely until John had finished, and then told him that unfortunately, his “inspector” had seen what John had done, so he had no choice but to write him a ticket. But strangely, he never reached for his ticket pad – or even asked John for his license and registration. He merely explained that the ticket was $80, and that Mexican court was a real hassle. (We can only imagine he WAS telling the truth about this!)

Luckily, last weekend while in Progreso, we met a couple who had just renovated a house on the beach. They were Canadian, always flew into Cancun, and rented a car for the four-hour drive to Progreso. We found out that Michael, had a “lead foot,” and had been stopped by the police multiple times. He gave us this advice: if you are stopped, just simply tell the police how sorry you are, and that you would be so appreciative if the officer could “pay your fine for you” as you don’t have a ton of time to deal with the Mexican court system. (Obviously, no officer really goes to court to pay your fine – they just pocket your money. But hey, even cops in Mexico need to eat, right?)

So armed with this knowledge, John told the cop that of course Mexican court would be a big hassle, and he would love it if the officer would please pay his fine for him. But that $80 was WAY too much, after all, he needed to buy milk and food for the baby, (Ce was in the back seat) and he could only afford $40. (John thought about pushing it to $20, but it’s like buying a house, you don’t want to lowball so much as to offend … especially when there is the however-distant threat of Mexican court looming.)

The cop happily obliged, advising “discretion” as the transaction took place in front of a constant stream of pedestrians (who knew exactly what was going on). After the money changed hands via a textbook money-in-the-palm handshake, he happily asked, “SO, where ya from?!”

And with that, we experienced our first haggling experience in Mexico, saving us a total of $40 and a trip to Mexican court! What a deal, indeed.

10 Years!

So this blog entry is coming a bit late, as our “real” 10-year anniversary was February 2, 2008. But on February 2nd, we a) had only been in Mexico one full day and were up to our ears in moving in, cleaning, shopping for necessities, and unpacking, and b) we didn’t have childcare to go out to dinner properly.

So we decided to wait a week to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary, and went out this past Wednesday, Feb. 13.

We went to a delightful hole-in-the-wall restaurant called “La Casa de Frida,” decorated, of course, with every piece of Frida Kahlo memorabilia available: pictures, paintings and little remembrances of her life. There was some original artwork, including also a fantastic painting of a tree that had branches curling every which way on the plaster walls, sprouting three-dimensional paper mache fruit at their ends.

The food was really fantastic, the restaurant specialized in the regional fare of Mexico. John had a divine duck mole, a sauce popular in the Oaxaca region of Mexico, containing as many as 25 spices! I had “arrachado,” a local Yucatan specialty that is basically a very flavorfully marinated steak, served with rice, plantains and avocado. The specialty of the restaurant is the “chile en nogada” from Puebla – a chile stuffed with meat, apples, pears and spices, and covered with a creamy walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. We had this when we ate at Frida’s the first time; it was delicious, but you have to be in the mood for it. It's very rich!

We had a lovely time out that evening, our first time out alone since we have been in Merida. (We found a wonderful woman named Margarita who nannies for us 5 hours each day, and babysits at night too.) We reminisced about the last 10 years, but were ever cognizant of the timing of it all. It was 10 years ago (on Feb 2) that we were married in Mexico, and now we are back with Carolina.

As a matter of fact, February in general is a BIG month for us – our anniversary on February 2, and Carolina’s adoption date is on February 27. They are the two most important moments in our lives together to date, and being in Mexico to celebrate them has been a dream come true.

Sleeps Eight

You may have heard of ice hotels in Scandinavia, tree top hotels in the canopy of the rain forest, and capsule hotels in Asia (where people pay to sleep in a 3 X 3 X 6 foot boxes) but have you ever walked into a small-ish hotel room, looked at two double beds and no sofa, and then be told—with a straight face—“it sleeps eight?”

That was our conundrum as we toured the Reef Club – a not-so-swanky, but “exclusive” (by virtue of there being no other hotels within 50 miles) “club hotel” (read timeshare complete with annoying sales pitch.)

After spending two days in the port city of Progresso, on the NW side of the Yucatan peninsula, we drove east to explore the 30 miles of white sand beaches dotted with the multi-million dollar second homes of Merida’s wealthy. (We found out from our Dutch host in Progreso that Merida is actually home to more millionaires per capita than any city in Mexico.)

Back to the Reef Club, outside of Telchac Puerto. It was only after seeing several small rooms, each sleeping “six,” “eight,” or “ten” people that we established that every two hooks on opposite sides of the wall in the living room “slept one.” Suddenly, it all made sense: some rooms with two beds HAD six hooks – and slept ten. Those guys in the street selling hammocks? You really do need one, if you want to turn your “double” into a “suite.” The most expensive rooms had 8 to 12 hooks in the wall, making it feasible for a family of 6 or 8 to easily (but not comfortably) sleep in a standard size hotel room.

Needless to say, we were not overly impressed. Besides, once everyone is comfortably stacked-up like firewood at bedtime—how do you get to the bathroom in the middle of the night?

Different strokes, different folks.

One of the things we find most fascinating about experiencing other countries and cultures is that everybody has their own way of doing things, and often times, "their" way is just as good as "our" way, just different. Here are some small differences we've found in our lifestyle in Mexico in the short time we've been here.


Water.
You know how we have tap water in the United States and use that for pretty much everything – from making your coffee to brushing your teeth to washing your lettuce to drinking? Well, in Mexico they have tap water, too. But you don’t drink it if you want to stay healthy. Instead, there are huge purified jugs of water that sit on countertops in every kitchen in Mexico. They are filled with 5 gallons of “agua purificado” and have a hand pump that makes you feel like you are pumping water the old fashioned way. Which you are.

There is something extra refreshing about water this way. For one, you enjoy it a bit more because it isn’t as simple as just turning on the tap—you have to work for it, and think about it. And two – a whole 5 gallon jug costs you just $1.80. That’s a lot more refreshing than the $40 to $80 dollars it would cost to buy 40 16-ounce bottles back home.

It’s better for the environment, and a man with a funky bike delivers it to your front door and carries into the house – all included in the $1.80 price. Our take: the water is better here.

Siesta.
In theory, siesta is the world’s greatest invention. What could possibly be better than having societal permission to take a couple hours off in the middle of the day to eat, rest and spend quality time with one’s family? (Well, as long as you asked, that answer would be a Results-Only-Work-Environment (ROWE), the latest thing John has been working on. See www.caliandjody.com/blog for more info on this new amazing concept.)

But during our “siesta” in Merida, we like to run errands: drop clothes off at the Laundromat, pick up a couple of items for CeCe at a local tienda, get some big jugs of water delivered, that sort of thing. Well, we dare you to get much of anything done during siesta. On a recent trip to Wal-Mart, in fact, we waited for at least 30-minutes as cabbie after cabbie drove right past our flailing arms. Why? It was siesta, and most of them seemed to be enjoying it with the lady in their lives next to them in the front seat of their car.

Babies and humidity.
We’ve heard it time and time again – babies sleep constantly. And CeCe has always been a champion sleeper. However, in Merida, we have begun to worry that our little 16-month-old has narcolepsy. We’ve finally come to suppose that it is the heat, humidity, fresh air – and probably the daily swims in our courtyard pool – that is lulling her to sleep for up to 17 hours A DAY. You heard me right.

Goes to bed: 7:00 pm
Wakes up: 8:30 am
Morning nap: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Afternoon nap: 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Repeat.

Refrigeration.
It is always interesting to me to see what other cultures refrigerate and what they do not. Or what they have a big selection of in the grocery store, and what they do not. Some observations:

Milk in Mexico is not refrigerated. All the milk is in the “milk aisle” next to the soup.
Eggs? Nope. Not refrigerated. Just piled on crates in the middle of the store.

But yogurt is refrigerated, and the yogurt aisle takes up more space than almost anything else in the store. They have all flavors and brands – and all consistencies. The biggest thing to hit Mexico since sliced bread? Yogurt drinks. They are everywhere. We’ve never seen so many in our lives. But if you are looking for feta cheese, say? There is one unappetizing brand in the whole HUGE store, badly packaged. The packages had no “use by” dates on them, and they looked like they had been around since the opening of the store itself. But they WERE refrigerated … so that was encouraging. (We still didn’t buy one.)

Garbage and recycling.
You know how we separate our waste into “garbage” and “recycling” in the United States – can, bottles, paper, cardboard, etc? Here is Mexico they separate by “organic” and “inorganic.” The “organic” garbage guy comes every Monday and Thursday, and the “inorganic” guy comes every Tuesday.

And it works just how it sounds. We pile all of our cans and plastics and bottles into our inorganic can which fills up pretty quickly and is changed pretty often. Then we pile our “organic” matter into another garbage can WITH a lid that fills very slowly with organic bits: cucumber and banana peels, chicken bones, jalapeno stems and dinner leftovers. We actually keep this garbage can out in the courtyard, as it starts to stink after about four hours.

As CeCe would say of our little composting experiment, “Pee-you!”

Carnaval!

This past Sunday, CeCe went to her first Carnaval parade. We did too.

By pure coincidence, we arrived in Merida just as the local week-long version of Carnaval was beginning. Like Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnaval in Brazil, Carnaval in Merida it is an oversized celebration that the locals take quite seriously. Given the nearby Mayan ruin Chichen Itza’s recent induction into the New Seven Wonders of the World, Carnaval’s theme in Merida this year is: The Wonders of the World.

Even though we missed it, we especially liked the concept behind Carnaval’s kick-off “The Burning of the Bad Moods,” in which a life-sized doll, representing bad moods and bad humor, is publicly burned. (And actually, it’s very reminiscent of a Colombian New Year’s tradition in which small, straw dolls representing bad feelings are burned on New Year’s Eve as a way of moving on.)

While we opted for some of the more pedestrian, family-friendly fare (parades and people watching during the day) we could hear the nocturnal music and debauchery from various parties and over 20 music stages scattered all over the city. The accompanying partying and dancing in the streets lasted into the wee hours of the night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Instead of going to all the parties, we opted to for a dip in our pool and a little dancing in the kitchen with CeCe. She has rhythm!

Speaking of Carolina, she has made many new friends here. On Sunday in the Zocolo (main plaza), thousands of people turned out for the parade that was to start at noon. In classic Mexican form, we got our first glimpse of the parade at 2:00ish, so Carolina spent the better part of the afternoon smiling, waving, babbling, and generally flirting with every man, woman and child who looked in her general direction. It seems she really shines when she knows she has an audience—and today she had her largest audience ever. Of course, we spent the better part of two hours coming up with all sorts of “fun” things to distract her: a bottle WITH a cap! A pair of sunglasses! A pinwheel purchased from a balloon lady for $2! Spoons! Sugar packets! You know, fun stuff like you have in your backpack. It was a brutal wait.

But finally the floats started to make their way around the plaza. While the parade at first appeared to be one large product placement for Coca Cola (the first four floats were Coca Cola-sponsored and gave away Coca Cola t-shirts, mugs and bottles of Coca Cola) it eventually morphed into a more wide-ranging parade with elaborate costumes, loud music, dancing, and several rather scary-looking clowns. There was also a popular “tele novela” star atop one of the floats, which caused a raucous chorus of high-pitched screams from hordes of young Mexican women in the crowd. CeCe just batted her eyes at him.

Unfortunately, we had to leave the parade early, as we were about 2 ½ hours late for Ce’s nap. So we took our pinwheel and let it spin in the breeze on our way home. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Up and running

Our main fear in moving to Mexico for 5 weeks was that, upon arriving in Mexico with a steadfast determination to "get a lot of work done," we would be waylaid by technology issues. Before leaving we shopped around for a new cell phone provider with the best service in Mexico and settled on T-Mobile, recommended to us by every cell phone service provider we talked to except (of course) the one we were giving up, Sprint.


But we've shopped for technology needs before, and typically we find ourselves in an overpromised-underdelivered predicament, i.e., the phone they say will work "wherever" actually doesn't and the software that they say is easy to install never is.


But alas -- we are up and running! We simply plugged our T-Mobile wireless router into our cable modem, and we are totally connected. T-Mobile's "Hotspot @ Home" provides us with an WiFi internet connection that works anywhere in our rented house (including poolside in our little tropical courtyard). The best part is we have FREE international phone calls on our cell phones when we are in the house because we are calling via the internet, not a cell tower. And calls are FREE anywhere else in Merida with a wireless connection!


So thank you, T-Mobile, for delivering the on your technology promises. (And no, we aren't getting any product placement fees for that observation.)