Sunday Dinner: Southwestern Eggrolls

We haven't done this in quite a while, have we?! Well I've certainly still been cooking big Sunday dinners but have obviously been too lazy to post...

Chili's is easily my favorite chain restaurant of it's type. I'd pick it over Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday's or 54th Street any day. I can never decide what to order there and inevitably end up choosing the Triple Dipper every time. An easy solution for the indecisive. Chili's in Juárez is as equally delicious as the American counterpart and even boasts some impressive additions to it's menu, my favorite being the Jalapeño Margarita. Unfortunately, it's prices are also equal to that of the US and with our current income, eating out is rarely an option. And so, I took it upon myself to recreate my favorite item from the Chili's menu: Southwestern Eggrolls.

The menu description is "a crispy flour tortilla filled with smoked chicken, black beans, corn, jalapeño Jack cheese, red peppers and spinach. Served with avocado-ranch dressing." I can work with that. I googled some recipes but each one seemed to have all sorts of additional spices added and I really think the ingredients speak for themselves. I decided to get rid of the sweet red peppers as well and replaced them with fresh diced jalapeños to add a little kick. I also prefer the thin, crispy texture of an egg roll wrapper than that of an actual fried tortilla. The following is my own recipe, sans unnecessary spices and salt. As much as I hate it, I really am trying to cut back on sodium. The cheese in this recipe provides more than enough though so you won't really miss it.

A la Pioneer Woman, here is our cast of characters...

Egg rolls wrappers (or flour tortillas if egg roll/wonton wrappers are not available), 1 whole chicken breast without skin, de-boned, 2 Roma tomatoes, 1 medium white onion, 1 jalapeño, 1 can yellow sweet corn, 2 cups fresh spinach, 1 cup shredded cheese of your choice (I chose mild cheddar),  2 cups cooked black beans, ranch dressing, avocado, fresh cracked black pepper.

To make dressing add 1 half diced avocados to 1 half cup of ranch dressing. Add fresh cracked black pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate while the eggrolls are being prepared.

Dice chicken and heat with 1 tbsp. oil (not pictured because I'm thorough like that) until cooked through and set aside. Dice veggies and cook until onion is translucent.

Remove skillet from heat and add in your cheese. Stir until it's incorporated. Fill each eggroll wrapper with 2 heaping tablespoons of the filling mixture.

Fold in the sides of the eggroll wrapper as you would fold a burrito, unless, of course, you are from Northern Chihuahua where they don't fold the sides in and the burrito filling just falls into your lap. Then you are just fucked my friend.

Fold your eggroll to completely envelope the filling mixture. Set aside and continue this process until you have used up all of your filling and/or wrappers/tortillas.

In a large skillet of oil (about 1" high), cook eggrolls over medium high heat.

Cook until golden brown, about 3-5 minutes, then flip to cook the other side.

Remove eggrolls from oil when completely cooked and drain on a paper towel lined plate. This recipe makes about 20 eggrolls. Serve with avocado ranch dressing.

Bon appétit and bocagasmos por todos!
*Leftovers can be frozen and are delicious when reheated for 10-15 minutes in an oven preheated to 400 degrees.

Third Eye Blind

I’m thoroughly enjoying my 3 day weekend. I was supposed to have to work on Saturday to complete payroll but my boss allowed me to work ahead of the deadline. With Monday off, I'm not feeling my normal Sunday doom-esque thingy. Gordo had little to no questions answered at his doctors visit on Monday. Basically, they determined that the issue is plantar fasciitis. They aren’t sure, but I am happy to join in on that bandwagon as it is in-line with what I have thought this entire time. He has been feeling well the last 3 days and I'm hoping it continues.

I had an amazing birthday party last night and was once again reminded of what wonderful friends I have here in Juarez. The beauty of it is that I might not have been friends with all of these women had I have met them back in the US, but because we bonded over our situations, I now have friends that may not have the same view points as I, but I love nonetheless. That is a gift from God because I think the best friend you can have in this life is a friend who is willing to disagree with you.

I was on one tonight and ran out of wine but had no intention of pausing my felicidad so I asked my husband to take me up to S Mart for a bottle. I love going to S Mart late at night. We live on the edge of Campestre here in Juarez and S Mart is on Vicente Guerrero so a late night grocery trip involves bumping elbows with Campestre fresas. I don’t now why, but I really love to observe the rich of Juarez. This isn’t what I even want to talk about though. I was leaving the store and Gordo put in my Alternativa #3 mix CD which got me thinking.

I don’t know if it’s from the drugs I did years ago, but every once in a while I get these intense flashbacks and I certainly had one tonight. Suddenly I was back in the 8^th grade and on the phone with a boy who I thought I was in love with. I'm listening to some angst-ridden alternative music and drinking a beer I stole out of the fridge from my step dad. I was genuinely afraid, wondering if he would find out, as I talked to the boy for 7 hours. I don’t know in detail what we talked about, but I know I’ll remember it for years, as I still remember that it was the conversation of my life. We talked about our families and theology and love and life, but I can’t remember the details that left me so enamored. This seemed to happen all the time.

I never forget these conversations or question their importance. This morning I was in bed with my husband and asked him if he ever had such an experience when he was a teenager. He bursted my bubble by telling me that they didn’t even have a phone at their house until he was in his 20’s. Back to the first world…

These conversations shaped my future. They made me who I am, even if I don’t recall the details. Every time I listen to Everclear or Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Smashing Pumpkins or Third Eye Blind, I remember these late nights, tip-toeing into the living room for the phone, and covering the cord with my blanket in a pathetic attempt that my mother wouldn’t realize I was still talking at 4 am. What I most remember is that I was longing for the love of a boy during those conversations. I wanted a certain boy. I wanted a boy who acted just so, and thought just so. It was all I desired and all I thought of, thus motivating these late night conversations that lasted for hours and hours.

I’m the fool because I just realized that I got that boy. I am such a fool because I have had him for over 7 years and it’s just now come to my attention. My husband is everything I could have ever desired, even as a dreamy, unrealistic, fickle, 13 year old girl. He is caring and street smart and thoughtful and observant and funny and understanding. He is the man I dreamed of as I sat in my bedroom on Paseo Way listening to the Dizzy Up the Girl on repeat.

Netflix and Paracetemol

In July my husband went to visit his family in Hidalgo del Parral while I was in Missouri for my son’s birthday. A couple of days after he came home, he woke up and was unable to walk. He had excruciating pain in both feet, but no other symptoms. I was still in Kansas City at this point and when he told me over the phone, I wasn’t too concerned. From what he described, I thought he probably had heel spurs and that they could give him cortisone injections at IMSS. I know how painful they are as I have them myself from time to time but at least there is a simple solution. I told him to just rest up and we would visit the doctor when I got home.

When his vacation ended he hobbled to the maquila where he was immediately sent to the infirmary and then the hospital. He had a series of visits to the hospital and on July 27^th the doctor gave him the diagnosis I had suspected. Espolón. They told him that they would need to take x-rays to confirm the diagnosis and the first appointment available was on August 16^th, 3 weeks away. I was appalled that it would take so long but with no money to go to a regular doctor, our hands were tied. As we waited impatiently for his appointment date he was required to visit the IMSS hospital once a week to renew his “incapacidad.” It’s basically a doctor’s note stating that he is unable to work. He has to turn it into his boss each week so that he doesn’t lose his position at the factory.

He went to his first few appointments without me and when I found out that by his 5^th visit the doctors had yet to examine his feet I literally lost all my marbles and decided I would have to start going with him. Of course I demanded answers from the doctors and insisted they do a more thorough examination and not just look him up and down and send him to the scripts line. My efforts were not rewarded. When I realized they really didn’t know what’s wrong with him all I could do was march my defeated butt down to the prescription line like everyone else.

My purse full of Ray's medications that made me feel like a pill-popping crack whore.

His x-rays were finally done and it turns out he doesn’t have bone spurs. His blood work came back normal ruling out gout and the like. Upon reading his test results the doctor just shrugged his shoulders and threw his hands in the air. “¿Pues… quien sabe?” Apparently he’s a medical mystery! So we’ve been spending every Friday evening at the IMSS hospital. Each time he sees a different doctor or nurse or whatever the hell they are and each time they look at him like he has 3 eyes and then proceed to prescribe various medications. Because his doctor changes every week and there is no apparent system which shows who’s prescribing what, he is getting a cluster-fuck of medications which we then have to take home and WebMD and Google Translate our asses off until we can figure out what can be combined and what shouldn't even be given to a lab rat.

Just trying to make some sense of all the recetas and come up with a schedule for everything

We finally got an appointment with an orthopedic specialist at a different hospital. That appointment is on Monday morning and we are praying for some answers. In the meantime I felt so bad that my poor husband is stuck in the house all day with his feet up that I finally signed up for Netflix Mexico so that he would have something to entertain him. For anyone who is hesitant, let me just tell you, it’s awesome! It’s 99 pesos a month and you get tons of movies and a bunch of American TV shows to choose from. You can watch in English or Spanish audio and English or Spanish subtitles. My favorite part is the TV shows of course. They have several seasons of The Real Housewives of Orange County that I can’t wait to see and tons of other series that I have always wanted to watch but never had the time for. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Dexter! They even have every season of 90210. Enough said, right? I knew it was worth the $7.62 US when I was 7 episodes deep in La Reina del Sur before I realized that I still hadn’t brushed my teeth and I wasn’t wearing any pants.

Stuck on Netflix.

I’ll let you all know how it goes on Monday. Please cross your fingers for us! Hope everyone’s having a great weekend!

20%

2 years ago today, at this time exactly, I was in the fetal position in the corner of a dingy motel room on Ejercito Nacional. The pase-1980’s-southwestern décor was enough to make anyone want to vomit, but I had bigger things on my mind than the cactus pattern on the comforter. Like what the fuck was I doing in Juarez?

What was I thinking?

Who does this shit?

Seriously though, who does this?

Where are we going to live? Am I going to have to live in this puta’s paradise of a motel for the rest of my life?

Would I become another murder statistic?

Melodramatic much? Yes, at that moment, as I drank Boone’s Farm Sangria straight from the bottle and stared cross-eyed at the rental section of El Diario, this was how I felt. I was never a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person and I decided in that moment that moving to Mexico was by far the stupidest thing I had ever done… and I’ve done some pretty stupid shit. When I look back at that moment, I realize how much I have grown in the last 2 years. I thought that our 10 years here would be something lamentable that we would one day refer to as “the lost years” as we regrettably whispered explanations to our children.  Instead, I learned the most valuable lesson that I may ever learn; life is what you make it.

I have tried so hard to focus on the good and “fake it till I make it” and blah, blah, blah. For a while there I was doubtful, but PSA people: It works. There really is something to all that “when life hands you lemons,” bullshit. I wasn’t sure I would survive a week in Juarez and now here I am, lovingly referring to it as mi Juaritos as I jokingly duke it out with other expats over which border city is inferior. (Much love to my TJ beach bums. #wink) I’m sure a lot of what I have grown to love can be shared with people all over Mexico, but I have to assume that some things are specific to this region.

1. I love hearing the people. Mexican people are a passionate breed. They love big and fight big. When I first got here I just silently thought, “Why can’t everyone just shut the hell up?” Of course I was a different person then and was quite used to the idea that the world revolved around me and that everyone should go to sleep when I went to sleep. After a year of living behind a park where teenagers played soccer until midnight most weeknights, I suppose you can say I’ve gotten used to it. The random dog’s barking is even growing on me whereas just over a year ago I was strongly considering slipping my neighbor’s Chihuahua a lethal dose of quaaludes.

2. I like chile con queso although that’s more of an El Paso thing than a Northern Mexico thing. Artery cloggingly delicious nonetheless. I no longer scoff at burritos that are the size of my pinky finger. Apparently the US has the whole burrito thing all mixed up. Burritos are not supposed to be that big. Whaaaatever. On that same note I have become semi-obsessed with street food. I will try anything from anywhere. Balls to the wall. I had an incident where I bought a bean burrito from the back of a Sandusky-ish van to fight a fierce hunger pang and actually bit into a chunk of bar soap. Other than that the street food can be pretty superb and in a worse-case-scenario, edible. I have finally stopped dreaming about Barro's, Rubio's, Filiberto's, House of Eggroll, Burrito Express and Gecko Grill.

3. I no longer question when someone says they’ll show up (or pay us back or deliver XYZ) on Tuesday at 4:00 pm and I don’t hear from them until the following Sunday at 6 am. That’s become normal to me (outside of the workplace) and although it’s not how I operate, tardiness no longer drives me to fits of rage.

4. I don’t bat an eyelash when I see a caravan of bullet-proof SUVs. This is probably the most fucked-up change in mi ser but when I look at the big, worldly picture of it all, it’s not a bad thing. I have learned to drop my head down quickly and draw little or no attention to myself. I’ve also learned what areas best be avoided so that the aforementioned becomes irrelevant.

5. Above all, I think I can accredit my newfound happiness and Zen with life to my fellow expats and others involved with US immigration. I don’t know what I would have done or become had it not been for you all. I’ve met some of the most amazing people in the last 2 years, along with a few people I wish I’d never met. I’ve learned to be cautious with everyone, especially people I’ve met on the internet. It’s hard to tell who’s going to be that friend that you go to the movies or share a bottle of wine with and who’s going to be a raging, hormonal, lunatic who shouldn’t leave the confines of padded walls. Some people are good company and some people are just Kelly Bensimon.

6. I can’t imagine paying more than $4 US for a hair cut or more than 30 cents for a pound of potatoes, onions, tomatoes or jalapenos. I have quickly learned which items are cheaper in the US and which are bargains in Mexico. It’s taken some time to get used to it all, but at this point shopping has become smooth sailing.

7. On that same note I have learned to live on so much less. We earn less than half of what we earned when we lived in the US and we are still alive and pleasantly plump. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment by any means but we have adjusted to some degree and if nothing more we have become more grateful, humble people in the process.

8. I can find things! Office buildings, people’s homes, restaurants, stores... I can find them all! I don't need a Garmin or a Tom-Tom, I just find shit. Can you believe it? At first I lost my mind when I realized that no one uses major cross-roads here and East and West were confusingly referred to as Oriente and Poniente and not Este and Oeste as I had assumed. Now, if someone tells me that it’s “a few kilometers down from the red building next to the burrito stand by the elotero behind the gas station with the graffiti,” I no longer revert back to the desperate fetal position of my first night in Juarez.

A lot has happened. I have changed in ways that even I cannot see at this time. I never expected it. I don’t regret a single moment and couldn’t feel more blessed. Thank you.

Oh Say Can You See?

Patriotism is one of those manic topics for me. I can’t quite organize my thoughts about it and it’s something that has evolved and changed for me over the years. I remember a time, about 4 years ago, when I posted on I2US that I wasn’t proud of my country anymore. I think my exact words were that it made me feel sick to my stomach. I wasn’t a happy person then, and honestly, I don’t really think I was a happy person for most of my life. I felt like I had gotten the short end of the stick. That feeling has definitely changed over the years and immigration and everything that has come with it has definitely played a major roll in inspiring that change. Just when I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, my stick got ripped out of my hands and chucked in the desert. That’s when I realized that I had nothing to complain about and I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

The 4^th of July brings out a lot of emotion for an American who has been displaced from their country in the way I was. It’s very difficult. However, I am happy to say that I have completely moved past those feelings of bitterness toward my country. When I look at our current situation, I no longer feel as though I have been abandoned by the US, or that it has done me wrong in some way. To me, the majority of the problems with immigration law today are a result of too many people abusing the system over the years. It’s not just one white politician’s fault. Many hands have made this bed. It has taken many a fake marriage and fake birth certificate to get to where we are today. Is it still unjust for those of us who didn’t partake in any of that fraud? Yes. Do I want to cry and curl up in the fetal position some days? Hell yes. But at the end of the day, these are the laws, they are what they are, and life isn’t always lollipops and gummy bears. We can take it or leave it.

Now that I am outside of the United States and have had a chance to carve out my little life here in Mexico, I am more proud than ever to be an American. Especially after seeing the Mexican presidential election unfold, I am able to appreciate America in a way that I was never able to appreciate it while I was living there. People can bitch and moan about Obama all day long, and complain about the lack of jobs or the line at the welfare office. At least there is a welfare office to help you when the job market is crumbling and at least we have valid elections where the candidate America votes for is actually the candidate who goes into office. And furthermore, thinking outside the comparisons of the Americas for a second, at least I have the right to vote and the freedom to say all of the things I am saying right now, without fearing for my life. The only backlash I will get from writing this today will be from a few internet trolls who want me to be as bitter as they are about our government.

My perspective has completely changed. At the end of the day, I am more proud to be an American than I have ever, ever been in my entire life. For the first time, I actually know what this day means and it has nothing to do with going to see fireworks or wearing an Old Navy t-shirt once a year. I finally know what it means to be proud to be an American and what we, as a country, have been fighting for since day one. I think that makes today sting a little bit more. It’s unsettling to truly love and appreciate my country but not be able to plant my roots there, but I am glad that I feel this way. I know that when our day does come, we are going to take it for everything that it is worth and appreciate every single second for the rest of our lives.

La Mugre y Mi Uña

When I moved to Mexico I left some amazing friends behind. I never, ever thought that I would meet the women that I have met here. My friends here in Juarez are so special to me. I really can’t say enough about them. I never thought I would have this new group of people who truly understood me and where I was coming from. I feel so fortunate to have them in my life. A little over a year after we moved here, I received an email from a woman who had been living here in Juarez for about a year with her husband and daughter. She found me through this very blog. We talked for a while via email, and I could instantly tell that she was quirky and eccentric and super fucking cool. Around that same time someone else that I had met though immigrate2us.net had just moved to Juarez and we were planning a barbecue at our house so that everyone could get better acquainted.

I told Cortney that she should come. Now that I know her and her husband better, I know they were both hesitant to get together with strangers, but desperate to meet people in Juarez who could relate to their situation. Their hesitance makes sense because sometimes seemingly decent people in Juarez turn out to have their hand in the pot of delinquency that make up the danger in this city. They were on backlog at the time for a typical I-601 waiver case. After a year in Mexico, not speaking Spanish, she was coming to her wit’s end with being holed up in her apartment, so distanced from the life she knew before. I think Cortney was desperate to speak English. Their situation was different than the rest of us who live here in Juarez in that the majority of the people in our group of friends have lifetime bans with no chance at a waiver, with the exception of Stacy and I who will be able to file for our husbands after we have spent 10 years outside of the country (in 2017 and 2020 respectively.)

I still remember that barbecue, on October 6^th, when I first met her. She had her hair teased, Jersey style, and was wearing a headband with a bow made of gold sequins. She was extroverted and bubbly and excited to meet everyone. I instantly felt a connection. She brought meatballs in some sort of sweet sauce, which I thought was hilarious, because who brings meatballs to a barbecue in Mexico? Either she wasn’t playing by the rules, or she didn’t know them. I have some serious reservations about making random friends in Juarez and I don’t know what it was about this woman, but I felt safe. I felt okay. We bonded over our love for Padre Kino and I felt like we had been friends since birth. Since that day we have been somewhat attached at the hip and I immediately knew we would be friends for life.

She is someone I can tell anything to, without being judged, even when she disagrees with me in every aspect. It’s hard not to judge me. I’m nuts. Seriously. I’ve had a rollercoaster of a life and it’s hard for someone to get me when they weren’t there for all of the madness. Somehow though, she does it. We can stay up talking till 4 in the morning, braiding each other’s hair and singing Adele, without a care in the world. Many of you have seen a change in me in the last year, especially those who follow me on Facebook and Instagram, and I feel I can fully accredit that change to this friendship. I have become more willing to adapt, more daring, more open, more understanding and most importantly, more positive, than I ever could have imagined.

Here we are, not even a year later, and her husband was approved and they went back to the States on Tuesday. This is the first weekend I have spent without her in a very long time. I’m not going to lie. I am so sad. I am also so happy for her, yet jealous at the same time. Obviously. Above all else though, I am happy for her. I am sad that she’s gone and I don’t have my friend around the corner anymore. This isn’t someone I became friends with out of convenience, or just because she understands all of the immigration drama. I was meant to meet this woman. It was so hard to watch them go. These are good people with good auras.

Cortney and Phil influenced mine and Ray’s lives in unforeseeable ways. They represent a different group of immigrants than we do. Phil came to the US as a child and you would never guess that he was a Mexican immigrant. He speaks fluent English and knew little to nothing of the Mexican way of life when they first came to Juarez. I had the pleasure of seeing this couple evolve over the last few months and take Mexico and it’s culture by the horns, taking away all of the positive things of life here. They were instrumental in my personal quest for positivity and optimism in life.

Cortney chose to come to Mexico with her husband and that is something I will forever respect. So many people in this world of immigration go back to their home countries alone, leaving their US citizen spouses and/or children behind and at the end of the day, a lot of the relationships simply deteriorate. Let’s be honest. I see it all the time. It’s too much change. It’s too much time apart. I think it is by the grace of God that Cortney and her daughter came with Phil to Mexico.

I am so glad that I met them. We spent a lot of time together before they left, trying to get it in. It was reminiscent of my last months in Arizona, trying to suck up as much of my friends as I could. Surprisingly, this hurts all the same. I don’t know why I wasn’t anticipating all of this when we moved to Juarez. I should have. I should have understood from my group of immigrant friends, from I2US and Facebook and American Families United, that people were going to move in and out of my life.

I should have forecasted that I would have these people, who would touch my life, and that eventually they would be moving on to bigger and better things. Living so close to the American consulate inevitably connects you with transients. For whatever reason, I didn’t anticipate meeting the people that I have met here. I don’t know what I will do when our ten years here is up. We have 8 more years. I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s time to say goodbye to the rest of the people who have touched my life in such remarkable ways. These people have become my family in a time when I am so distanced from my actual family. I am living a different life in a different world. I didn’t expect any of this and it’s so hard. At the end of the day, all I can do is be happy for those who are able to move on and be excited for all of the opportunities that the world has in store for them. I just pray that I will always be able to maintain the relationships that I have built here and will continue to build, regardless of any lines in the sand. That’s all I can do.

2012 Presidential Elections

I have been so insanely busy the past couple of months that I just haven’t had a chance to catch up here. I had a friend come and visit me here in Juarez, went to Phoenix for work a couple of times, got to catch my little sister’s graduation in Iowa and was training a new employee for our Albuquerque office for the better part of May. Plus, it’s definitely the busy season for the industry I work in so I’ve had a lot on my plate.

The presidential elections are coming up for Mexico on July 1st and you can definitely feel the buzz in the air, and in the media. I don’t think I ever fully realized the direct affect a president can have on a country. Well, I could imagine and do worse-case-scenarios, but I didn’t really know. I think the last presidential term in Mexico is a disgustingly, perfect example of what a government’s decisions can really do to its country. I should preface this blog by saying that I know little to nothing about politics in the US, much less in Mexico, so I really don’t know what I’m talking about here. I only know what I believe. From the bit that I’ve read, Mexico had been basically controlled by PRI for some 65 years until PAN took control in 2000. This kind of seems to be when all hell broke lose with the cartels, but that may have more to do with heightened drug addictions (thank you science) than with the actual decisions of the political parties.

I still can’t figure out which party would be considered Democratic and which would be considered Republican, if it can even be compared in that sense at all. I’m not really getting a good idea of anything when it comes to this election. I don’t have a grasp of what the candidates or parties represent. They do not seem to stand alone on any of their issues or ideas, but then again, I am not really spending a significant amount of time looking into any of this. I want to leave that in my husband’s hands and not stick my nose into it too much. He has been in the US since he could vote so this will be a first and I am doing my best to not scare him away from the process with my controlling tendencies.

I must say it’s beyond scary to sit back and watch the campaigning and the elections and just cross your fingers, hoping for the best as changes ensue in Mexico. When you think about what’s happened in the last 6 years, it’s just fucking scary. Since Calderon was elected as president in 2006 and decided to saturate the country with military troops in an attempt to fight this drug war, over 47,000 people have been murdered in Mexico.

A few weeks ago we had friends over and I was in the midst of one of my (seemingly more) frequent rages about the power of the vote when one of my girlfriends here kind of put me in my place, gently. I was speaking with our husbands about how powerful our vote is and both of the men seemed to share the sentiment that your vote doesn’t really count here in Mexico. I think a lot of people feel that way in the US as well, which is why so many people don’t vote. That is exactly why more people vote for American Idol than in the presidential elections! Even though I know that truth, I also know that when I go out and participate at the polls, I am taking my personal stand and my little step towards achieving the democracy that I believe in.

I have faith in the democratic system and although I don’t necessarily think it’s working the way it would ideally, it’s definitely better than the alternative. Anyway, that night I was going on and on about how I feel about democracy and blah, blah, blah and they gave me their take on it all. It was brought to my attention how frequent and common it is that candidates will actually give kilos of rice or beans or rice or flour or whatever to the people to literally purchase their vote. Not necessarily like in the US where they promise tax cuts, or immigration reform, or certain social services in order to win the vote of a particular demographic, but they literally give food or monetary incentives to people in exchange for their vote. Maybe I am being naïve to say that I don’t think this happens that often in the US? I’m always the first one to admit that I am young and I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m just feeling my way through life and learning along the journey, so forgive me if I am, as my mother would say, out to lunch. Regardless, the situation in Mexico is very sad and I can definitely see how an election could easily go corrupt here, even more so than in the US.

I’ve talked about this in depth with my husband I want him to understand that every journey begins with the first step and all that inspirational crap that you see on Facebook and Pintrest these days. Ignoring the corn factor, I can admit it. It’s true. Regardless of any corruption, we still need to vote and we still need to participate in the polls if we ever want to get to a point with our system where it really does work for the people and the results truly reflect what the people want. Forget about the candidates. Even if we have to sit here and decide who we hate the least, we still need to vote. If we do not participate, I believe that we are giving in and giving up and we are never going to get the system that we all long for. I am not living in La La Land people. Well, maybe a little…

I can’t imagine that the government will EVER be exactly what we want it to be, but I think it could be better than it is. This goes for any democratic nation. I’m not just talking about the US and Mexico. Again, I might be naïve and I might be young but I think if we lose faith in the system or we give up on the system and determine that the government is just corrupt so, fuck it, let just post a bunch of anti-man, anarchist shit on Facebook and do whatever we want, I think we are just taking a step backwards. Having that mentality and that attitude just hits the rewind button. A lot of people fought in all of these countries in order to have a democratic government. In my opinion, by not voting, it is a slap in the face to every soldier in Mexico, America and every other democratic nation that there is. Democracy has not always been a given and we should thank God that we have such a system in place now, regardless of how imperfectly it works. We need to vote.

I have no idea who the better candidate is in the Mexico election. I feel very lost. What I want for Mexico is the candidate who isn’t out for Chapo’s head. In my opinion, it makes much more sense to concentrate on social services within the country and bettering the economy and opportunities so that the people are not so likely (or dare I say obligated) to delve into a life of crime. To me, that is so much more important than head hunting for cartel members. Not only that, but I feel like an approach of that nature could significantly lessen the violence here by giving less attention and press time to particular gangs. I am not saying that the cartels should be ignored, but as long as Americans continue to pour billions of dollars into drug trade, Mexico will always supply the demand. Let’s concentrate on bettering the people of Mexico so that they are not so compelled to partake in all of the bullshit going on in the US.



If anyone knows of any websites or literature that could help my husband and I get a better idea of what these candidates represent, I would greatly appreciate it. The election is coming up very soon and this will be the first chance that Mr. Cruz will be in Mexico as an adult to vote in an election so he is pretty excited, and I am excited for him, but we are both a little lost. It’s hard to educate ourselves here. Even the presidential debates, which reek of sexico, have aired near midnight on Sunday evenings so we’ve missed them. If it weren’t for the cleavage, I would almost think they weren’t meant to be seen.