Last night we were out on our patio with friends, drinking some Tecates, playing darts, line dancing, you know, the usual. Yes, I said line dancing. I haven’t confessed this yet here on the blog but the Texans finally got to me and I am now an avid country music fan. I listen to it all the time and I can’t get enough of it. Its simplicity is addicting. It’s like bacon or young adult novels or crack. You can’t take just one hit.
Luckily I found a friend who shares my love for the banjo so I have someone to line dance with. We were having a great time when Lee Brice’s song, “A Woman Like You,” came on the radio and we got to talking. I’m going to assume I don’t have a lot of country fans reading this right now so I am going to post the lyrics to this song. Yes, I swear I have a point.
A Woman Like You
Lee Brice
Songwriters: Philip Barton, Johnny Bulford, Jonathan Stone
Last night out of the blue
Driftin' off to the evenin' news
She said "Honey, what would you do
If you'd have never met me?"
I just laughed, said "I don't know,
But I could take a couple guesses though."
And then tried to dig real deep,
Said, "Darlin', honestly
I'd do a lot more offshore fishin'
Probably eat more drive-thru chicken
Take a few strokes off my golf game
If I'd a never known your name
I'd still be drivin' that old green 'Nova
I probably never would have heard of yoga
Be a better football fan
But if I was a single man
Alone and out there on the loose
I'd be lookin' for a woman like you."
Well, I could tell that got her attention
So I said, "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention
I wouldn't trade a single day
For a hundred years the other way."
She just smiled and rolled her eyes
'Cause she's heard all of my lines
I said, "C'mon on girl, seriously
If I hadn't been so lucky
I'd be shootin' pool in my bachelor pad
Playin' bass in my cover band
Restockin' up cold Bud Light
For poker every Tuesday night, yeah
I'd have a dirt bike in the shed
And not one throw pillow on the bed
I'd keep cash in a coffee can
But if I was a single man
Alone and out there on the loose
I'd be looking for a woman like you."
She knows what a mess I'd be if I didn't have her here
But to be sure, I whispered in her ear
"You know I get sick deep-sea fishin'
And you make the best fried chicken
I got a hopeless golf game
I love the sound of your name
I might miss that old green 'Nova
But I love watchin' you do yoga
I'd take a gold band on my hand
Over bein' a single man
'Cause honestly, I don't know what I'd do
If I'd never met a woman like you."
We both took the chance to ask our husbands what they would be doing now if they had never met us. Their response was hilarious to me. They both said that if they had never met us, they would be doing exactly what we were doing right then, drinking beer and barbequing with friends. But wait, there's more. Wait for it… They both said they would still be in the United States. Their response makes sense for financial reasons and because they probably wouldn't have such a sense of responsibility to follow immigration law if they were bachelors without a family to worry about, but still... it had me doubled over laughing.
If they never would’ve married Americans they would still be in America.
Oh the irony…
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Good Friday
On Friday I saw someone get shot. I didn’t know him. I was about a block away. He was wearing a red t-shirt. That’s all I really know about him. We weren’t in our neighborhood and neither of us had ever met the man. By his position on the corner in front of Del Rio, catty-corner from a popular church, I knew that he either sold cigarettes, newspapers or rosaries. I’ve said this before and I will say it again: This wasn’t a stray bullet, or a random act of violence. This was a man who failed to pay the quota. Am I an asshole because I understand the mind of a gangster, or am I an idiot because this didn’t scare me? I still feel as optimistic about Juarez and am as in love with this city now as I was on Friday morning. Sometimes I feel as though someone has injected Novocain into my brain. Is this ignorance? Am I in denial? I don’t know. All I know is that I am not the only one that reacts to murder this way.
We were on the way to our friend’s house for a little pre-Easter/Passover celebration, enjoying the radio and the warm Spring winds with the windows rolled down. When we heard the gunshots and saw the man fall to the ground, my husband and I simultaneously rolled up our windows as I reached to turn the stereo down, as though this would protect us from any stray bullets. We arrived at our friend’s house and told them what had happened. Moments later, one of their neighbors walked by with his daughter. She was maybe three or four years old. My friend asked them if they were headed to the corner store, and after the man confirmed that they were, my friend informed him that there had been a shooting and it might not be the best place to go with his daughter right then. This man hesitated for seconds, only seconds, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to walk in the direction of the store with his daughter. Shit, when you need milk, you need milk?! Apparently, a shooting on a corner in Juarez is about as surprising as a lemonade stand in suburbia. This is only the 4th or 5th dead body I have personally seen in the last year and a half, but I imagine it takes more than that to make the people so desensitized.
They flock to the corner when someone gets shot here. It always seems to happen on a corner. Crowds surround the body for what seems like hours before the caution tape gets put up. A lifetime passes before the ambulance arrives. It’s an eternity before the body is taken away. Afterwards, there is nothing left but a blood stain on the sidewalk. People walk over it unknowingly and knowingly. It fades into the concrete and you stand above it as you wait for La Ruta to take you to a maquila where you earn a dollar an hour. Maybe the victim was loved and has a brave family and a cross with plastic flowers pops up after a couple of weeks. The newspapers eventually report the murder but the name is never mentioned. Numb.
At what point in our lives did death become such a callous matter? At what point did I become a part of the “our” that makes up Juarez? I have a feeling that my ability to brush all of this off has more to do with my past than it has to do with my present, but still, how does one become so numb to all of this? Is this ignorance or is this bliss? Is this denial or is this acceptance? Is this realism or is this defeatism?
I have a feeling that I may never know…
We were on the way to our friend’s house for a little pre-Easter/Passover celebration, enjoying the radio and the warm Spring winds with the windows rolled down. When we heard the gunshots and saw the man fall to the ground, my husband and I simultaneously rolled up our windows as I reached to turn the stereo down, as though this would protect us from any stray bullets. We arrived at our friend’s house and told them what had happened. Moments later, one of their neighbors walked by with his daughter. She was maybe three or four years old. My friend asked them if they were headed to the corner store, and after the man confirmed that they were, my friend informed him that there had been a shooting and it might not be the best place to go with his daughter right then. This man hesitated for seconds, only seconds, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to walk in the direction of the store with his daughter. Shit, when you need milk, you need milk?! Apparently, a shooting on a corner in Juarez is about as surprising as a lemonade stand in suburbia. This is only the 4th or 5th dead body I have personally seen in the last year and a half, but I imagine it takes more than that to make the people so desensitized.
They flock to the corner when someone gets shot here. It always seems to happen on a corner. Crowds surround the body for what seems like hours before the caution tape gets put up. A lifetime passes before the ambulance arrives. It’s an eternity before the body is taken away. Afterwards, there is nothing left but a blood stain on the sidewalk. People walk over it unknowingly and knowingly. It fades into the concrete and you stand above it as you wait for La Ruta to take you to a maquila where you earn a dollar an hour. Maybe the victim was loved and has a brave family and a cross with plastic flowers pops up after a couple of weeks. The newspapers eventually report the murder but the name is never mentioned. Numb.
At what point in our lives did death become such a callous matter? At what point did I become a part of the “our” that makes up Juarez? I have a feeling that my ability to brush all of this off has more to do with my past than it has to do with my present, but still, how does one become so numb to all of this? Is this ignorance or is this bliss? Is this denial or is this acceptance? Is this realism or is this defeatism?
I have a feeling that I may never know…
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Hot Dogs & Eggs
I remember when I first met my husband. I lived in a one bedroom apartment without electricity (because I couldn’t pay the bill) in a bad neighborhood in Mesa, Arizona. The complex I lived in was full of coyotes and drug dealers and poor immigrants fresh out of Mexico, getting their first taste of the “American Dream.”
Enter husband.
When he came into my life I had just lost my family to my drug addiction for the second time in my life. I was wild. I was irresponsible. I was fun. I didn’t think about tomorrow, only that night, that minute, that high. I lived for the night. It was probably the most fun time of my life while also being the loneliest, most depressing and embarrassing time of my life. I don’t want to talk about that time in my life though. Not yet. Tonight I want to talk about what it was like to be really, really poor. And being poor was a direct result of that constant state oblivion so I felt the need to mention it.
We are getting tastes of that again, here and there, depending on how low our electric bill is, or if I get any overtime at work, or if it’s a lucky month where there is no electric bill (it only comes every 2 months in Mexico.) Sometimes I work a few extra hours, and the car doesn’t break down and my credit cards aren’t maxed out and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Those are the good months. We get those months more than we don’t. This is not one of those months. When you only have one US income but a couple’s worth of US bills, the slightest glitch in your finances can throw you to the floor.
I know I talked about this last summer when we had another particularly rough patch and here it is again, just as before. I don’t really see this as something we can entirely escape from while we are here in Mexico. We just aren't in the position to save for the unexpected... Sure we could probably just eat rice and beans and never go out, but I am trying to enjoy my time here in Juarez to the fullest, not resent it. We gave up cable and some other luxuries to be in this house and I still don’t regret it, but times like this definitely make me reflect on the past.
We lived on Mesa Dr. and Broadway in Arizona in a one bedroom apartment that cost $675 a month. At the time my husband brought home $300 a week, I wasn't working, and we both had horrible spending habits. We were smack dab in the midst of some sort of twisted mix of generational and situational poverty. We considered electricity to be an option yet water to be a necessity. A big shopping trip consisted of a walk to the Food City on the corner to purchase a dozen small eggs (78 cents at the time), a bag of store brand corn tortillas ($1.19), a package of Bar-S hot dogs (88 cents) and the smallest bottle of Tapatio hot sauce that they sold (99 cents.) We would alternate this menu with the splurge of $5 pizzas from Little Caesars every 4 or 5 days. We had no furniture in our apartment other than a mattress that we had dug out of the dumpster. Our pillows were several t-shirts stuffed into another t-shirt. We didn’t have cell phones or a computer or a DVD player. We did have a television that I had traded some drugs for.
The reason I am even thinking about all of this is because we had hot dogs and eggs for dinner tonight. Although now we had the rica addition of jalapenos and onions thanks to the cheap produce here in Mexico. This is what I really wanted to talk about. Yes. I am getting to the point. I swear.
I feel blessed tonight because of the little things. Mexico is built around the poor (and the rich of course, but that is another blog entirely.) There is a little thing about Mexico that makes it easier (no... not easier, si no que more convenient) to be poor here than it is in the US. This is about quantity. I got to thinking about this today because I was Googling, “What to cook when you’re poor” (YES!) and came across a couple’s experimental blog from 2008. http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/
The blog discusses the amount of money the majority of people have in this world to spend on food a day and while the average in the US is well over $5.00, I actually think it was $7-something, the rest of the world has an entirely different figure to work with. Someone commented on the blog and pointed out that the factor that screws so many poor people is their inability to purchase goods in bulk. This hit home with me today.
Thankfully, we have been blessed with a refrigerator and a stove, but we sure as hell aren’t in the position to go to Costco and buy 15 pounds of pinto beans right now. This is what got me thinking about a wonderful characteristic of Mexico that the US just doesn’t have. Here in Juarez, I can walk to the corner store and purchase 1 egg. That’s right, one. I could also buy just one kilo of dog food instead of a 10 lb bag. I can buy 2 jalapenos and the workers wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. I can purchase 1 roll of toilet paper, or 2 apples or half a head of lettuce or 1 slice of ham without any strange looks. Hell, you can even buy just one hot dog. That is the way of life here because the people of Mexico simply cannot afford to plan ahead, or stock up. It's a society built around survival and making it through the day and honestly, it’s something that I am forever grateful for when we are going through hard times.
It makes me sad too, of course. Knowing that I have friends out there who are enthralled with the idea of $300 million going into renovations at Sun Devil stadium while others in this world starve is a tough pill to swallow. On that same note I also know I have more than enough and there are many people out there would be unquestionably jealous of my lifestyle and spending habits.
I am just having one of those humbling realizations that so many people have so much less than me, even when I am at my worst. I may have no breathing room this month, but my bills are paid and I am fed and for that I really just want to thank God. I want to give thanks for all that I have and all that I don’t have. That is all. Enough rambling for the evening…
Enter husband.
When he came into my life I had just lost my family to my drug addiction for the second time in my life. I was wild. I was irresponsible. I was fun. I didn’t think about tomorrow, only that night, that minute, that high. I lived for the night. It was probably the most fun time of my life while also being the loneliest, most depressing and embarrassing time of my life. I don’t want to talk about that time in my life though. Not yet. Tonight I want to talk about what it was like to be really, really poor. And being poor was a direct result of that constant state oblivion so I felt the need to mention it.
We are getting tastes of that again, here and there, depending on how low our electric bill is, or if I get any overtime at work, or if it’s a lucky month where there is no electric bill (it only comes every 2 months in Mexico.) Sometimes I work a few extra hours, and the car doesn’t break down and my credit cards aren’t maxed out and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Those are the good months. We get those months more than we don’t. This is not one of those months. When you only have one US income but a couple’s worth of US bills, the slightest glitch in your finances can throw you to the floor.
I know I talked about this last summer when we had another particularly rough patch and here it is again, just as before. I don’t really see this as something we can entirely escape from while we are here in Mexico. We just aren't in the position to save for the unexpected... Sure we could probably just eat rice and beans and never go out, but I am trying to enjoy my time here in Juarez to the fullest, not resent it. We gave up cable and some other luxuries to be in this house and I still don’t regret it, but times like this definitely make me reflect on the past.
We lived on Mesa Dr. and Broadway in Arizona in a one bedroom apartment that cost $675 a month. At the time my husband brought home $300 a week, I wasn't working, and we both had horrible spending habits. We were smack dab in the midst of some sort of twisted mix of generational and situational poverty. We considered electricity to be an option yet water to be a necessity. A big shopping trip consisted of a walk to the Food City on the corner to purchase a dozen small eggs (78 cents at the time), a bag of store brand corn tortillas ($1.19), a package of Bar-S hot dogs (88 cents) and the smallest bottle of Tapatio hot sauce that they sold (99 cents.) We would alternate this menu with the splurge of $5 pizzas from Little Caesars every 4 or 5 days. We had no furniture in our apartment other than a mattress that we had dug out of the dumpster. Our pillows were several t-shirts stuffed into another t-shirt. We didn’t have cell phones or a computer or a DVD player. We did have a television that I had traded some drugs for.
The reason I am even thinking about all of this is because we had hot dogs and eggs for dinner tonight. Although now we had the rica addition of jalapenos and onions thanks to the cheap produce here in Mexico. This is what I really wanted to talk about. Yes. I am getting to the point. I swear.
I feel blessed tonight because of the little things. Mexico is built around the poor (and the rich of course, but that is another blog entirely.) There is a little thing about Mexico that makes it easier (no... not easier, si no que more convenient) to be poor here than it is in the US. This is about quantity. I got to thinking about this today because I was Googling, “What to cook when you’re poor” (YES!) and came across a couple’s experimental blog from 2008. http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/
The blog discusses the amount of money the majority of people have in this world to spend on food a day and while the average in the US is well over $5.00, I actually think it was $7-something, the rest of the world has an entirely different figure to work with. Someone commented on the blog and pointed out that the factor that screws so many poor people is their inability to purchase goods in bulk. This hit home with me today.
Thankfully, we have been blessed with a refrigerator and a stove, but we sure as hell aren’t in the position to go to Costco and buy 15 pounds of pinto beans right now. This is what got me thinking about a wonderful characteristic of Mexico that the US just doesn’t have. Here in Juarez, I can walk to the corner store and purchase 1 egg. That’s right, one. I could also buy just one kilo of dog food instead of a 10 lb bag. I can buy 2 jalapenos and the workers wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. I can purchase 1 roll of toilet paper, or 2 apples or half a head of lettuce or 1 slice of ham without any strange looks. Hell, you can even buy just one hot dog. That is the way of life here because the people of Mexico simply cannot afford to plan ahead, or stock up. It's a society built around survival and making it through the day and honestly, it’s something that I am forever grateful for when we are going through hard times.
It makes me sad too, of course. Knowing that I have friends out there who are enthralled with the idea of $300 million going into renovations at Sun Devil stadium while others in this world starve is a tough pill to swallow. On that same note I also know I have more than enough and there are many people out there would be unquestionably jealous of my lifestyle and spending habits.
I am just having one of those humbling realizations that so many people have so much less than me, even when I am at my worst. I may have no breathing room this month, but my bills are paid and I am fed and for that I really just want to thank God. I want to give thanks for all that I have and all that I don’t have. That is all. Enough rambling for the evening…
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Too Much
You know what I hate? When you are in this situation, living in another country, and you’ve given up everything you thought you wanted for what you really want, and you write about it all for everyone and their mother to read on the internet, you can’t always say what you want to say. Your relationship is under a microscope and every time your husband pisses you off because he had a bad day or you had a bad day, or whatever, there is someone right around the corner telling you to leave that illegal immigrant and that you deserve better. This drives me to insanity at times. It’s probably worse because I am well aware that I am the irrational and overly-emotional one, and 9 times out of 10, I’m the one that’s wrong in the argument.
What is it like to be in a relationship where you aren’t constantly reminded about someone’s citizenship or the fact that they make a dollar an hour? Or is it always like this? If it’s not citizenship, it’s social class and if it’s not a dollar, it’s eight?
Sometimes I just want to be able to mad about trash that didn’t get taken out, or money we don’t have or a new outfit that went unnoticed without it turning into a heated political debate.
Is that so much to ask for?
What is it like to be in a relationship where you aren’t constantly reminded about someone’s citizenship or the fact that they make a dollar an hour? Or is it always like this? If it’s not citizenship, it’s social class and if it’s not a dollar, it’s eight?
Sometimes I just want to be able to mad about trash that didn’t get taken out, or money we don’t have or a new outfit that went unnoticed without it turning into a heated political debate.
Is that so much to ask for?
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Home Sweet Home
It has been far too long since I have blogged and I hope everyone is doing well. Things have been fantastic here and I’ve just been busy living life: Another testament to the fact that life goes on after immigration woes.
We moved again in February so I was without internet for a while as we got settled in. Yes. We moved again. This marks our 4th house here in Juarez and I was slightly embarrassed as our neighbors watched us packing up our things for the 3rd time in a year and I swear I heard someone yell, “pinche gypsies,” out their window. Maybe it was the wind. Regardless, this move was the right thing for us and I am so happy we did it. The last house was perfectly fine, but definitely not where I wanted to live until 2021. The parking was horrendous, the security situation was laughable, there was no room to entertain our friends, no storage space and no yard for the dogs.
We actually found the new house on accident. It’s in the same neighborhood but in a section where the lots are twice the size so we never really looked over here, assuming the houses were out of our price range. My husband was giving a friend a ride when he saw the Se Renta sign in front of the little red brick house that I now call home. We are both semi-obsessed with brick homes but don’t see a whole lot of that here in the stucco/concrete jungle that is Juarez. He drove me past the house the next morning, with no true intentions behind any of it. Oddly enough, when we pulled up a woman called out to us from a car parked across the street.
“I’ve been waiting for you!” she said as she motioned for us to come over to her. We both looked at each other in utter confusion, but for whatever reason we parked the car and got out without exchanging a word. It was like the damn house was pulling us in. We didn’t ask any questions as she showed us around but eventually it came out that she thought we were the couple from El Paso that were scheduled to view the house that morning. Luckily, they never showed up.
I instantly fell in love with this place. I tried not to. I tried really hard. Well, not that hard. I knew it would cost more than we were paying, and we were already struggling. And I was right. It’s $1,500 pesos more than we were paying, but I was in love. What’s a girl to do? I crunched the numbers as soon as we got home and found a solution. We would have to cancel our cable service and our home phone, switch to a cheaper internet service, cut our cell phone minutes in half, cancel my UPS mailbox in El Paso and start getting my mail at work, put half as many pepperonis in my calzones, and voilà! $1,500. Can you feel the love?
When I am here I don’t even feel like I’m in Mexico. The fixtures and other details are beautifully done and not really what you would typically find in a home here. The kitchen is more than double the size of our previous homes. There is so much cabinet space that I even have 2 cupboards that are entirely empty, and I am that woman that has every kitchen gadget you can think of: multiple sizes of crock pots, George Foreman grills, griddles, a Cuisinart, different blenders, you name it. Hell, I have 2 coffee pots and we don’t even drink coffee. My gigantic tamale pots even fit inside one of the cabinets! For as much as I cook this kitchen has literally changed my life. There is also an island that looks out to the living room so we actually have a place to eat other than the coffee table.
Let’s be honest though… The island is mainly used to throw crap on. At the other house it was the stairs, which drove me insane. This works much better.
The house has wood floors throughout except for the kitchen and bathrooms which are tile. Yes, I said bathrooms. Plural. There is a half bath on the first floor and sometimes we like to pee at the same time just because we can. We have never had more than one bathroom, even when we lived in the US. The windows and doors are also framed with wood and have a very rustic look. It brings this color and warmth and richness that we never thought we would find in a home here. But I’m telling you, with all this wood, this house is a termite’s wet dream. That does make me nervous although I never hear people talking about termites here, or see pest control companies for that matter, so maybe it’s not a huge issue?
There is a laundry room off of the kitchen which is really awesome after spending the last year and a half washing our clothes outside or in dilapidated, poorly covered patios. The stairway is nice and wide, and not steep at all. This is also a huge contrast from the narrow death traps we had at our last 2 rentals. I swear I always knew that if I were to die in Juarez, it wouldn’t be because a cartel member chopped my head off for having blonde eyebrows but because I had one too many and plummeted down the stairs.
The staircase leads to a loft that has built-in bookshelves, a desk and even more storage space. I had all intentions of making this area my office, but as you can see, I’ve set up shop on the kitchen island and am feeling pretty comfy down here. I mostly go up there to read.
The two bedrooms are a nice size and the gigantic closets distract from the weird paint on the walls.
We have been pretty lazy about painting our bedroom because let’s be honest, we don’t spend a lot of time in there with the lights on! Everyone assumed we’d have it painted right away but… eh.
The best part about the house is the outdoor space. We finally have a gated area to park our car, and nice back patio to grill on, and grass. Real grass! I think the yard is as exciting to us as it is to the dogs. They even have a doggie door now and can come and go as they please. It is so nice to be able to have friends over to cook out, and not have to get up from our lawn chairs every 5 seconds to move someone’s car so that a neighbor can get out. Our last two houses were on the end of a dead end street and the lots were narrower than the length of most cars. That combined with the fact that each house seemed to have about 3 cars parked on the street caused some serious headaches.
We also have an actual security guard and keyed entry to the neighborhood. By “actual,” I mean that he’s not 80 years old, doesn’t spend his day making trips to Bip Bip to pick up milk for my neighbors, and doesn’t drink Tecates until he passes out around noon at the front gate. Win. This house is also equipped with an alarm system, motion detectors and all, which is another added comfort considering we are at work a good 13 hours a day.
So yes, maybe I am completely nuts to have moved this many times and was so embarrassed we didn’t even ask our friends to help this time around, but it was totally worth it. We lost about $15,000 pesos in deposits in the search, but I know this one’s a keeper. We actually fully unpacked for the first time since we left Arizona. I feel so blessed that we found what we've always wanted and hope that this blog didn't bore everyone. I just wanted to share that it is possible to find a place to proudly call home even if it isn't in The United States. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that this will be our home for the rest of the time we are in Juarez.
Did I mention one of the bathrooms has a toilet paper roll holder? #firstworldfeliz
We moved again in February so I was without internet for a while as we got settled in. Yes. We moved again. This marks our 4th house here in Juarez and I was slightly embarrassed as our neighbors watched us packing up our things for the 3rd time in a year and I swear I heard someone yell, “pinche gypsies,” out their window. Maybe it was the wind. Regardless, this move was the right thing for us and I am so happy we did it. The last house was perfectly fine, but definitely not where I wanted to live until 2021. The parking was horrendous, the security situation was laughable, there was no room to entertain our friends, no storage space and no yard for the dogs.
We actually found the new house on accident. It’s in the same neighborhood but in a section where the lots are twice the size so we never really looked over here, assuming the houses were out of our price range. My husband was giving a friend a ride when he saw the Se Renta sign in front of the little red brick house that I now call home. We are both semi-obsessed with brick homes but don’t see a whole lot of that here in the stucco/concrete jungle that is Juarez. He drove me past the house the next morning, with no true intentions behind any of it. Oddly enough, when we pulled up a woman called out to us from a car parked across the street.
“I’ve been waiting for you!” she said as she motioned for us to come over to her. We both looked at each other in utter confusion, but for whatever reason we parked the car and got out without exchanging a word. It was like the damn house was pulling us in. We didn’t ask any questions as she showed us around but eventually it came out that she thought we were the couple from El Paso that were scheduled to view the house that morning. Luckily, they never showed up.
I instantly fell in love with this place. I tried not to. I tried really hard. Well, not that hard. I knew it would cost more than we were paying, and we were already struggling. And I was right. It’s $1,500 pesos more than we were paying, but I was in love. What’s a girl to do? I crunched the numbers as soon as we got home and found a solution. We would have to cancel our cable service and our home phone, switch to a cheaper internet service, cut our cell phone minutes in half, cancel my UPS mailbox in El Paso and start getting my mail at work, put half as many pepperonis in my calzones, and voilà! $1,500. Can you feel the love?
When I am here I don’t even feel like I’m in Mexico. The fixtures and other details are beautifully done and not really what you would typically find in a home here. The kitchen is more than double the size of our previous homes. There is so much cabinet space that I even have 2 cupboards that are entirely empty, and I am that woman that has every kitchen gadget you can think of: multiple sizes of crock pots, George Foreman grills, griddles, a Cuisinart, different blenders, you name it. Hell, I have 2 coffee pots and we don’t even drink coffee. My gigantic tamale pots even fit inside one of the cabinets! For as much as I cook this kitchen has literally changed my life. There is also an island that looks out to the living room so we actually have a place to eat other than the coffee table.
Let’s be honest though… The island is mainly used to throw crap on. At the other house it was the stairs, which drove me insane. This works much better.
The house has wood floors throughout except for the kitchen and bathrooms which are tile. Yes, I said bathrooms. Plural. There is a half bath on the first floor and sometimes we like to pee at the same time just because we can. We have never had more than one bathroom, even when we lived in the US. The windows and doors are also framed with wood and have a very rustic look. It brings this color and warmth and richness that we never thought we would find in a home here. But I’m telling you, with all this wood, this house is a termite’s wet dream. That does make me nervous although I never hear people talking about termites here, or see pest control companies for that matter, so maybe it’s not a huge issue?
There is a laundry room off of the kitchen which is really awesome after spending the last year and a half washing our clothes outside or in dilapidated, poorly covered patios. The stairway is nice and wide, and not steep at all. This is also a huge contrast from the narrow death traps we had at our last 2 rentals. I swear I always knew that if I were to die in Juarez, it wouldn’t be because a cartel member chopped my head off for having blonde eyebrows but because I had one too many and plummeted down the stairs.
The staircase leads to a loft that has built-in bookshelves, a desk and even more storage space. I had all intentions of making this area my office, but as you can see, I’ve set up shop on the kitchen island and am feeling pretty comfy down here. I mostly go up there to read.
The two bedrooms are a nice size and the gigantic closets distract from the weird paint on the walls.
We have been pretty lazy about painting our bedroom because let’s be honest, we don’t spend a lot of time in there with the lights on! Everyone assumed we’d have it painted right away but… eh.
The best part about the house is the outdoor space. We finally have a gated area to park our car, and nice back patio to grill on, and grass. Real grass! I think the yard is as exciting to us as it is to the dogs. They even have a doggie door now and can come and go as they please. It is so nice to be able to have friends over to cook out, and not have to get up from our lawn chairs every 5 seconds to move someone’s car so that a neighbor can get out. Our last two houses were on the end of a dead end street and the lots were narrower than the length of most cars. That combined with the fact that each house seemed to have about 3 cars parked on the street caused some serious headaches.
We also have an actual security guard and keyed entry to the neighborhood. By “actual,” I mean that he’s not 80 years old, doesn’t spend his day making trips to Bip Bip to pick up milk for my neighbors, and doesn’t drink Tecates until he passes out around noon at the front gate. Win. This house is also equipped with an alarm system, motion detectors and all, which is another added comfort considering we are at work a good 13 hours a day.
So yes, maybe I am completely nuts to have moved this many times and was so embarrassed we didn’t even ask our friends to help this time around, but it was totally worth it. We lost about $15,000 pesos in deposits in the search, but I know this one’s a keeper. We actually fully unpacked for the first time since we left Arizona. I feel so blessed that we found what we've always wanted and hope that this blog didn't bore everyone. I just wanted to share that it is possible to find a place to proudly call home even if it isn't in The United States. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that this will be our home for the rest of the time we are in Juarez.
Did I mention one of the bathrooms has a toilet paper roll holder? #firstworldfeliz
Friday, March 16, 2012
Bring It
This morning I woke to find my husband taking short breaths, grasping his chest as if he had just been punched by Mike Tyson. His face was the absolute definition of fear and frustration and eventually, he broke into tears, asking me to take him to the hospital. I hadn’t taken him seriously until the waterworks began. He may cry during an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but if not subjected to watch children suffering from a terminal illness or the likes, tears are a rarity with my husband. We ventured into the early morning darkness in search of an IMSS hospital. We passed several “regular” hospitals (like the kind we are used to in America) in our search for a public hospital. IMSS hospitals in Mexico do not charge their patients, do not require insurance, and fill all prescriptions at no charge. I am told the care is sub-par, and the waits are horrendous, but that it usually does the trick when you can’t afford anything more than… a trick.
I didn’t get a chance to develop my own opinions of IMSS because apparently we arrived hours before they opened and we couldn’t find any Urgencias (Emergency Room) entrances. Instead my husband suggested I take him to work where he could see a nurse in the infirmary, and assured me that if it were a matter of life or death, she would be able to call an ambulance. It’s quite a predicament, isn’t it? We are in “my husband’s” country, yet it is so foreign to him, he doesn’t even know how to call for help in an emergency. We will be investigating this for sure.
The nurse at his work took his blood pressure and immediately diagnosed him with alta-presion. After a couple of hours of observation he was sent to S-mart to purchase celery, which was said to be the solution to all his problems. Whatever. I stopped judging my husband’s gullibility a long time ago. Maybe I’m just a skeptic asshole for even considering him to be gullible in the first place. All I know is that celery isn’t the answer. I called him every hour throughout the day to make sure he was still alive and left work a half hour early with the intention of taking him forcefully to the hospital. When I finally made it home he didn’t look as desperate as he announced that we could no longer eat pork and I saw a bag of dry oatmeal and an aloe leaf out of the corner of my eye. Here we go…
Dr. Magallanes was recommended to us by the mechanic on the corner. When we entered his office, conveniently located in front of a Farmacia Benevides, my husband was comforted by the fact that he recognized a patient in the waiting room as one of our neighbor’s “rich, older brothers.” His words, not mine. I guess my husband isn’t familiar with just how stupid and uninformed rich people can be, but that’s another blog, my friends. The floor of the clinic was dirty and I was just happy they had a wi-fi connection so I could distract myself with Facebook. Gordo seemed to be working on some deep breathing, Zen type techniques as we watched Canal Historia on the television in the waiting room. I can’t remember what show was on. The distractions turned out to be a necessity because from the second we walked into this place I was skeptical. Not only am I naturally skeptical to medicine in general (thanks to my mother and her schooling on homeopathic remedies) but I also happen to be American. As an American, I think “our” medicine and methods are better than that of any other country out there, whether it’s true or not.
When it was our turn for Ray’s “consulta,” I carefully studied the degrees and accolades that hung haphazardly on the stained walls of the doctor’s office. I questioned whether or not it would be rude to ask why there were only copies of the doctor’s degree from the Universidad Autonomo de Ciudad Juarez instead of the originals. I decided to keep my mouth shut. I bit my tongue as Dr. Magallanes took my husband’s vitals and asked him routine questions. I fought the urge to argue that further tests were needed and why the hell doesn’t this dude know what Aleve is? When the questioning was done, I was surprised and pleased to hear his diagnoses. There is nothing wrong with my husband.
He didn’t have a cough or chronic heartburn or episodes of vomiting. He didn’t have any pains in his arms or legs and hadn’t turned purple as he struggled to breath this morning. The doctor’s solution was so simple that I almost struggled to swallow it. He announced that Gordo’s pain was due to stress and only relaxation and profound sleep would resolve the problem. As they discussed it further I learned that my husband never feels fully rested and rarely even gets 4 hours of a deep uninterrupted sleep a night. I am a person that goes to sleep after my husband and require a solid 8 hours, so I was quite shocked by this development. As quickly as I concluded that this doctor was a genius by his diagnosis, he gave my husband 4 prescriptions. Four. Cuatro.
Wait a minute; I thought there wasn’t anything wrong him? Again, whatever. I was in no mood to argue and hoped I was just being the skeptic asshole that I am prone to be. We took his pink slip of paper straight to Farmacia Similares. Ketorolaco, Paracetamol, Ivel and Benedorm. That’s the trick. It’s now been 17 hours, 590 pesos and my first visit to a Mexican doctor since his original episode and we are both feeling much more at ease.
I am trying to ignore my assumptions of Mexican medicine and Gordo is eating bits of papaya as I type. It’s no surprise that I am not a health expert, but I remain a skeptic. I am drinking Padre Kino and plan on eating copious amounts of pork in the middle of the night, just before bed. No one would ever make an example of my current lifestyle, that’s for sure. Gordo fully intends on cutting back his sodium and fat (bacon) intake and I intend to never wake him up until he asks. Our first medical emergency in Mexico has passed, for now, and we are both still alive. Us 3, Universe 7. That’s right, we’re keeping score. Bring it.
I didn’t get a chance to develop my own opinions of IMSS because apparently we arrived hours before they opened and we couldn’t find any Urgencias (Emergency Room) entrances. Instead my husband suggested I take him to work where he could see a nurse in the infirmary, and assured me that if it were a matter of life or death, she would be able to call an ambulance. It’s quite a predicament, isn’t it? We are in “my husband’s” country, yet it is so foreign to him, he doesn’t even know how to call for help in an emergency. We will be investigating this for sure.
The nurse at his work took his blood pressure and immediately diagnosed him with alta-presion. After a couple of hours of observation he was sent to S-mart to purchase celery, which was said to be the solution to all his problems. Whatever. I stopped judging my husband’s gullibility a long time ago. Maybe I’m just a skeptic asshole for even considering him to be gullible in the first place. All I know is that celery isn’t the answer. I called him every hour throughout the day to make sure he was still alive and left work a half hour early with the intention of taking him forcefully to the hospital. When I finally made it home he didn’t look as desperate as he announced that we could no longer eat pork and I saw a bag of dry oatmeal and an aloe leaf out of the corner of my eye. Here we go…
Dr. Magallanes was recommended to us by the mechanic on the corner. When we entered his office, conveniently located in front of a Farmacia Benevides, my husband was comforted by the fact that he recognized a patient in the waiting room as one of our neighbor’s “rich, older brothers.” His words, not mine. I guess my husband isn’t familiar with just how stupid and uninformed rich people can be, but that’s another blog, my friends. The floor of the clinic was dirty and I was just happy they had a wi-fi connection so I could distract myself with Facebook. Gordo seemed to be working on some deep breathing, Zen type techniques as we watched Canal Historia on the television in the waiting room. I can’t remember what show was on. The distractions turned out to be a necessity because from the second we walked into this place I was skeptical. Not only am I naturally skeptical to medicine in general (thanks to my mother and her schooling on homeopathic remedies) but I also happen to be American. As an American, I think “our” medicine and methods are better than that of any other country out there, whether it’s true or not.
When it was our turn for Ray’s “consulta,” I carefully studied the degrees and accolades that hung haphazardly on the stained walls of the doctor’s office. I questioned whether or not it would be rude to ask why there were only copies of the doctor’s degree from the Universidad Autonomo de Ciudad Juarez instead of the originals. I decided to keep my mouth shut. I bit my tongue as Dr. Magallanes took my husband’s vitals and asked him routine questions. I fought the urge to argue that further tests were needed and why the hell doesn’t this dude know what Aleve is? When the questioning was done, I was surprised and pleased to hear his diagnoses. There is nothing wrong with my husband.
He didn’t have a cough or chronic heartburn or episodes of vomiting. He didn’t have any pains in his arms or legs and hadn’t turned purple as he struggled to breath this morning. The doctor’s solution was so simple that I almost struggled to swallow it. He announced that Gordo’s pain was due to stress and only relaxation and profound sleep would resolve the problem. As they discussed it further I learned that my husband never feels fully rested and rarely even gets 4 hours of a deep uninterrupted sleep a night. I am a person that goes to sleep after my husband and require a solid 8 hours, so I was quite shocked by this development. As quickly as I concluded that this doctor was a genius by his diagnosis, he gave my husband 4 prescriptions. Four. Cuatro.
Wait a minute; I thought there wasn’t anything wrong him? Again, whatever. I was in no mood to argue and hoped I was just being the skeptic asshole that I am prone to be. We took his pink slip of paper straight to Farmacia Similares. Ketorolaco, Paracetamol, Ivel and Benedorm. That’s the trick. It’s now been 17 hours, 590 pesos and my first visit to a Mexican doctor since his original episode and we are both feeling much more at ease.
I am trying to ignore my assumptions of Mexican medicine and Gordo is eating bits of papaya as I type. It’s no surprise that I am not a health expert, but I remain a skeptic. I am drinking Padre Kino and plan on eating copious amounts of pork in the middle of the night, just before bed. No one would ever make an example of my current lifestyle, that’s for sure. Gordo fully intends on cutting back his sodium and fat (bacon) intake and I intend to never wake him up until he asks. Our first medical emergency in Mexico has passed, for now, and we are both still alive. Us 3, Universe 7. That’s right, we’re keeping score. Bring it.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Be The Change
The line was long this morning. It’s been long all week. It’s always long, I suppose, but this week has been a little ridiculous. This happens once in a while. The last time I remember it being like this was when U.S. troops killed Osama Bin Laden and CBP was making an attempt to tighten security in preparation for any possible backlash or terrorist attacks. I’m not sure what’s going on right now and I’ll probably never know.
With that being said, after being in line for over 2 hours, I wasn’t really excited to see that they had found some sort of contraband in a car a couple of places ahead of me. I have a feeling I would normally welcome this type of event because it was pretty interesting, but today I just wasn’t feeling it. It took another 30 minutes or so to tear the dude’s car apart and handcuff him and take him away. I kept myself busy watching Khloe & Lamar clips on the new E! app on my phone and soon enough I was next up to bat.
When I saw the CBP agent gesturing back to the stop sign I was parked behind, I knew he was one of the grumps. I could tell right away that he was giving the person a hard time because when they were next up to cross, they hadn’t stopped far enough behind that stop sign. I’ve gotten a talking-to about on multiple occasions. Oddly enough, it’s always in those 2 center lanes. Whatever. I could tell he was either in a bad mood, or just a jerk, so I decided before pulling forward that I would kill him with kindness.
I handed him my passport and said, “Good morning,” with a huge smile.
Anything to declare?
No sir.
What was the purpose of your visit to Mexico ma’am?
I live in Juarez.
How long have you lived in Juarez?
A year and a half.
Where are you going?
Work.
Do you like it better in Juarez?
Do I like it better? I don’t like living in Juarez better than living in the US, but I like living with my husband better than living without him.
How long have you been together?
7 years.
That’s a pretty good amount of time. It’s a shame though; you’ll never know what he’s really in it for. Everything can change once he gets that green card. You know how it goes. Everybody has a friend of a friend of a friend that got conned into a marriage for a green card. I really hope that doesn’t happen to you. Anyway, have a nice day.
…
Wow. The sarcasm in the "have a nice day," stung right there at the end.
It took me a second to realize that this man just basically said that my husband will most likely leave me once he can legally come back to the US. I was so shocked that I forgot about those stupid speed bumps in the two middle lanes and had already slammed into one before I had the burning desire to get the officer’s name and badge number. It was too late anyway; I was really late to work. Other fellow expats that cross the border regularly are always telling me their horror stories of disrespectful and overly invasive officers, but until today I had yet to feel offended. The idea that this man felt it was acceptable to say something like that to me blew my mind. It wasn’t long before the anger faded to pity, though, and by the time I got to work, I was pretty much over it.
While I feel really bad for people that make assumptions and think like this officer does, I see that I can’t blame them for their ignorance. I’m going to be honest here and tell you that I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times someone I know from the immigration forums has been abandoned by their spouse right after his/her Visa was approved. It’s true. Those bad apples ruin it for the rest of us, and are the ones that cause people to develop a lot of the negative opinions they have about immigrants. This is beyond unfortunate though, because although I may have heard of one marriage scam too many, I have heard of hundreds more stories of thriving, multi-national marriages. Multi-national? I’m not sure if that is the right way to describe us, but it seems to fit the bill in my mind.
I did not file a complaint because I decided that it just wasn’t worth my time or energy. This is where I have a little inner-struggle going on. Whenever I “just walk away” from an ignorant person now, instead of trying to educate them, I feel like a bit of a failure. I feel like I am letting down my fellow expats and immigrants alike, and allowing these injustices to continue. At the same time, I know that it is pretty unlikely that my complaint would result in changing this officer's perspective, or make him more respectful towards border crossers. That’s where it gets complicated and even more so, disappointing. Trying to change the world or the way people see the world can be pretty tiring. I spent a good 5 years of my life signing petitions and going to protest rallies and Googling immigration cases for several hours every day, trying to find a loop hole in the law that would result in Raymundo being able to come home. No dice. It only seemed as though the more I fought for change, the more bitter and angry I became. I will never get back those 5 years of my life and I never want to go down that road again.
Maybe I’m the ignorant one for not taking a stand, or making a big uproar, but being angry exhausts me. I think today I finally decided that I am not going to be angry anymore. From now on, I’m going to take a different approach at trying to change the world.
With that being said, after being in line for over 2 hours, I wasn’t really excited to see that they had found some sort of contraband in a car a couple of places ahead of me. I have a feeling I would normally welcome this type of event because it was pretty interesting, but today I just wasn’t feeling it. It took another 30 minutes or so to tear the dude’s car apart and handcuff him and take him away. I kept myself busy watching Khloe & Lamar clips on the new E! app on my phone and soon enough I was next up to bat.
When I saw the CBP agent gesturing back to the stop sign I was parked behind, I knew he was one of the grumps. I could tell right away that he was giving the person a hard time because when they were next up to cross, they hadn’t stopped far enough behind that stop sign. I’ve gotten a talking-to about on multiple occasions. Oddly enough, it’s always in those 2 center lanes. Whatever. I could tell he was either in a bad mood, or just a jerk, so I decided before pulling forward that I would kill him with kindness.
I handed him my passport and said, “Good morning,” with a huge smile.
Anything to declare?
No sir.
What was the purpose of your visit to Mexico ma’am?
I live in Juarez.
How long have you lived in Juarez?
A year and a half.
Where are you going?
Work.
Do you like it better in Juarez?
Do I like it better? I don’t like living in Juarez better than living in the US, but I like living with my husband better than living without him.
How long have you been together?
7 years.
That’s a pretty good amount of time. It’s a shame though; you’ll never know what he’s really in it for. Everything can change once he gets that green card. You know how it goes. Everybody has a friend of a friend of a friend that got conned into a marriage for a green card. I really hope that doesn’t happen to you. Anyway, have a nice day.
…
Wow. The sarcasm in the "have a nice day," stung right there at the end.
It took me a second to realize that this man just basically said that my husband will most likely leave me once he can legally come back to the US. I was so shocked that I forgot about those stupid speed bumps in the two middle lanes and had already slammed into one before I had the burning desire to get the officer’s name and badge number. It was too late anyway; I was really late to work. Other fellow expats that cross the border regularly are always telling me their horror stories of disrespectful and overly invasive officers, but until today I had yet to feel offended. The idea that this man felt it was acceptable to say something like that to me blew my mind. It wasn’t long before the anger faded to pity, though, and by the time I got to work, I was pretty much over it.
While I feel really bad for people that make assumptions and think like this officer does, I see that I can’t blame them for their ignorance. I’m going to be honest here and tell you that I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times someone I know from the immigration forums has been abandoned by their spouse right after his/her Visa was approved. It’s true. Those bad apples ruin it for the rest of us, and are the ones that cause people to develop a lot of the negative opinions they have about immigrants. This is beyond unfortunate though, because although I may have heard of one marriage scam too many, I have heard of hundreds more stories of thriving, multi-national marriages. Multi-national? I’m not sure if that is the right way to describe us, but it seems to fit the bill in my mind.
I did not file a complaint because I decided that it just wasn’t worth my time or energy. This is where I have a little inner-struggle going on. Whenever I “just walk away” from an ignorant person now, instead of trying to educate them, I feel like a bit of a failure. I feel like I am letting down my fellow expats and immigrants alike, and allowing these injustices to continue. At the same time, I know that it is pretty unlikely that my complaint would result in changing this officer's perspective, or make him more respectful towards border crossers. That’s where it gets complicated and even more so, disappointing. Trying to change the world or the way people see the world can be pretty tiring. I spent a good 5 years of my life signing petitions and going to protest rallies and Googling immigration cases for several hours every day, trying to find a loop hole in the law that would result in Raymundo being able to come home. No dice. It only seemed as though the more I fought for change, the more bitter and angry I became. I will never get back those 5 years of my life and I never want to go down that road again.
Maybe I’m the ignorant one for not taking a stand, or making a big uproar, but being angry exhausts me. I think today I finally decided that I am not going to be angry anymore. From now on, I’m going to take a different approach at trying to change the world.
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