Life As A Green Gringo

Never in my life have I felt so absent-minded, incompetent and down right stupid. While I have had a life long habit of losing my keys, now I’m losing almost everything and it’s spreading among the family. So far between us we have managed to lose $3000 pesos (which we found), a bank card (which was recovered in the bank ATM), keys to the van and a copy of our passport (neither of which has been found).

Driving here is an experience. It is nothing out of the ordinary to make a U turn and hold up traffic because you couldn’t quite make the turn. I tried it the other day and in my haste to not slow down traffic I clipped the concrete wall. It pretty much jarred everyone to their teeth. Thankfully the van didn’t seem much worse for the wear except for the mangled plastic. They love speed bumps here (called topes). We cross dozens of them in a day. Sometimes you see them and sometimes you don’t. We hit one the other day at full speed. It felt as though the front bumper scraped the ground on the way down. It was better than a carnival ride for sure.

We have enjoyed lots of new foods since we have been here and even the familiar foods are prepared differently. Pastries are less sweet as are soft drinks, tacos are not tacos as we know them, and corn tortillas are eaten every day. While everything tastes great beware of what it will do to your stomach in a few hours. I’m not sure how to put this delicately but “bathroom breaks” are pretty much a way of life.

As you know we have spent most of last week trying to find a house to rent. Did you realize there are no perfect houses? It becomes a test of perseverance mingled with much prayer in finding one. We hope to sign on a house this week and post pictures of it for you to see next week.

While things can be funny as we look back on them I can assure you that at the moment it just seems like another wave washing us. Diana said the other day, “I feel as if the last two years were preparation for my first week in Mexico.” Thankfully we don’t just have to hold on for dear life. When we arrived we found that our Shepherd was already here waiting on us to lead us beside quite waters, restore our souls and guide us in paths of righteousness for His Name sake. That is very reassuring for a green gringo.