Yo No Entender...

I've been in Mexico almost 9 years now.  And I wouldn't trade the experience of living here for anything!  But there are still those moments that are so unbelievable you just have to laugh.
For example, I don't particularly stand out in a crowd in Queretaro.  Yeah, I'm "blonde" (read: "don't have dark brown or black hair"), and I'm a little taller than a lot of women, but haven't reached the magic 5'9" that makes you "freakishly tall."  People generally know that I'm not a native-born Mexican once I start talking - my grammar isn't perfect, and people tell me I speak Spanish with a German accent (what's with that?)  Anyhow, in general, people don't focus on the fact that I was not born here.

But a few times per year I'll get a totally different response from people.  I may be going to a small store that I'd never been to before, or using a service that I haven't used before (new dry-cleaner, etc.)  And it's like the person attending the business sees me coming, and they must think ahead of time that I am a foreigner so they won't be able to understand me.  Because when I walk in and ask a question (and it always seems to happen on a "good Spanish day," when I know I spoke grammatically correct, AND without much of a foreign accent), they give me a blank stare and say in Spanish, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."  I'm confused as to why they didn't understand "how much do the tomatoes cost," so I repeat myself.  I know they understood this time, but they still kind of stare for a moment before responding, "Esteeee ("um" in Mexican Spanish) 12 pesos per kilo."  It used to really bother me that people would like mentally freak out upon having to deal with me.  But now it's just funny.  I still don't understand why this happens.  Especially when people from other parts of Mexico assume that I'm from maybe Northern Mexico, or somewhere that isn't where they're from.  This has only happened in Queretaro.  In fact, no one bats an eyelash in Mexico City when I'm asked where I'm from and say "Queretaro."  They just know that I'm not from Mexico City. 

It's just a funny thing that comes with the territory of living in a country that you weren't born in! 

The Market and the Pilon

The beginning of each month, I go get about 20 pounds of fruits and vegetables from the market.  This lasts most of the month, with the exception of some fruits that don't last long, I need to buy those again later in the month.  So I take my market bag and head off.  The place I go has really low prices (a head of broccoli for 20 cents US, 2 pounds of tomatoes for 50 cents, etc).  The thing that some people don't like about this particular place is that the guys who work there choose your produce for you.  You ask for a half pound of jalapeños, but they get to put them in the bag for you.  But I have rarely been disappointed - it's rare that I get any produce that I wouldn't have chosen myself, and you can see the produce displayed so if you see that tomatoes are squishy, maybe you shouldn't buy them that day. 

I tried taking a couple pictures of the produce place without being noticed, because people just don't take pictures of the produce place, that's weird!  haha!

Here are the market bags for sale, as well as bananas, tomatillos, oranges, mushrooms, cilantro...

And this one really didn't turn out well, but there are boxes of carrots, onions, broccolis, zucchinis, and cactus leaves.

This stuff comes straight off the farm, so it lasts for a couple weeks in the fridge since it didn't spend 2 weeks in a truck or grocery store!

Then there's the "pilon!" (pee-LONE)  They don't give a pilon at this particular market, but the lady who owns the little store on my street gives me the pilon frequently.  A pilon is: when you buy 10 eggs and she gives you an 11th for free; you ask for 1 pound of sugar and you get 1.1 pounds; buy quite a few things in the store and the owner asks you if you want the half head of lettuce that someone bought the other half of.  It's like your freebie for being a good customer.  I even got a free churro once because I was there when the churro delivery guy (yes, that's a thing here!) came while I was talking with the store owner. 
JP and I really miss the punch card system in cafes, restaurants, and stores in the USA.  But we have pilones here, so even though it's not a formal "buy 10 get one free" card, and you never know when you're going to get it, getting a pilon is always a treat!

Little Did You Know...

There are a few things that I sometimes forget to tell "first-timers" to Queretaro about.  Yeah, everyone always tells the person traveling to Mexico, "Don't drink the water!!"  Actually, in Queretaro, most likely nothing will happen if you drink a glass of tap water.  (It's kind of like drinking river water in Oregon - you shouldn't do it, but we all know you didn't let that water boil when making your ramen noodles for dinner while camping, and seriously, who doesn't accidentally ingest like a liter of water while water skiing?  Maybe that's just me...)

But there are some things that have become so normal, I just quit thinking about them!

• Don't flush toilet paper in public restrooms.  There is a garbage can next to the toilet for that - public toilets get clogged up ridiculously easily.  Lots of people from the States are grossed out about this one.
  
• "Rinsing" lettuce doesn't cut it.  Lettuce, raw spinach, strawberries, grapes, and any other leafy or tiny vegetable or fruit needs to be disinfected with an iodine or bleach solution.  Smooth fruits and vegetables (apples, carrots, etc) should be washed with soap.  Ain't nobody wanna eat themselves some non-disinfected lettuce!
• Another bathroom one - many public restrooms don't have toilet paper (or soap, or paper towels, or toilet seats...). 
• AND, you generally have to pay to use a public restroom, like between 25 and 40 cents USD.  Some friends of our road-tripped down from San Diego to Queretaro several years ago, and I remember one guy said, "Dude, I've paid like 30 bucks on this trip so far just to pee!"
• About the water...  You can brush your teeth, wash dishes, take a shower, etc. in our tap water.  For regular drinking water there's the 5 gallon water-cooler-type jugs.
  
• Just go with the flow when it comes to riding in a car.  We had 4 adults and 5 (not very young) kids in a Honda Civic to go to lunch the other day.  If you need to use a taxi, the driver will not wait for you to install your un-expired car seat (what's with THAT? that's the craziest thing I ever heard of!) in the car.  Just get in, sit down, and... yeah.  heehee!
  
• If you are gluten-free, vegan, paleo, etc. well, have fun with that.  CHEESE is the way of life in Queretaro.  
• Sadly, our city is totally unequipped for people with physical disabilities.  It's irritating because it's not like there's no one here in a wheel chair or with a walker.  There are wheel chair/stroller ramps in some places, but half the time they are too narrow for a chair to go up/down, or they don't give enough space for the person to turn the chair at all after going up, orsomethinglikethat.  

It is always fun to have people visit us.  But flexibility is the name of the game.  My friend Apryl is great example of that - the first time she came to visit, I had to be at the church at like 8am for a few hours and there wouldn't have been anything for her to do, so she stayed at my house.  I called a taxi to go get her, and she handed the driver the address of the church (she doesn't speak Spanish) and he took her.  She had never been to the church before, and just kind of trusted that it would be around the corner from where the driver let her off at.  (It was, by the way!)  Apryl was also totally cool getting tamales for breakfast from a lady riding by on a bike who was selling them.  Our families were wary when we told them where the tamales had come from!  heehee!

Anyhow, after 9 years of living here, it's weird to go to Oregon and drink the (cold, non-chemical-tasting, yummiest ever) tap water.  I automatically look for the trash can to put my used tp into in bathrooms, and think going to the bathroom in a mall without paying for it - and you get FREE toilet paper too! - is awesome.  It' amazing to see people in wheel chairs driving and going everywhere independently in the US.  And yes, unless you have an actual food allergy, I WILL roll my eyes at your list of things you "can't" eat.  (The finger quotes are of utmost importance around "can't" in this situation).  But I love my home, and I love going home from my home whenever we get the chance!

Discipleship Time

We've been having our Thursday night discipleship group for two months now.  We are studying the life of Christ with several people who are either new Christians, or are not Christians.  It has been neat to be able to explain how to read the Bible, and see how each person is able to pick something that they learned to apply to their lives (we hope they actually WILL apply them to their lives!) 

I don't feel like I should post pictures of the group study on a public website, but we DO (of course!) have dessert each night, and this is the kind of thing we prepare each Thursday for those who come:

Coke, Jamaica water, tea, "coffee" (Yep, being an Oregonian, Nescafe must have the finger quotes around it to be considered "coffee") and that particular week I made an apple/peach coffee cake.

Aaaand, this is what my kitchen looks like at 11pm...

I'm kind of *ridiculously* OCD when it comes to my kitchen, but I LOVE having a mess on Thursday nights, it means we had a good time together after the study!

We are studying step by step the life of Christ, and are to when Satan temps him in the desert this week.  Please pray that those who come will grow in their walk with Christ, and anyone who has not accepted Christ may make the decision to do so.  Thanks!

Bringing the Dish Back Full

A few years ago, I ran across some bananas on sale for like 2 cents USD each, and bought loads of them and made a lot of banana bread with them.  I gave ziploc bags of banana bread muffins to JP's mom, and to friends at church.  I also gave a pyrex baking dish with banana bread in it to a neighbor.  About a week later, the neighbor knocked on my door to return my dish, and it had homemade cookies in it!  I told JP later, "Guess what!  When Vivian returned my dish, she put all these cookies in it for us!"  JP looked at me strange, and said, "Of course!"  I was confused.  He explained to me that if someone gives you a non-disposable dish of food, you need to return it with food in it!  (Glad he told me that before anyone ever gave us a returnable dish of food!)  So now, when giving baked goods to friends, I kind of hesitate to give them something in a dish that I need back - I don't want to obligate them to give me something in return!  A couple months ago I gave our next-door neighbors a plate of cookies, and they returned my plate with a glass bowl of homemade caramel corn (because you can't easily put caramel corn on a plate!)  So I gave their bowl back with some brownies in it.  Then last week I gave them a plate with banana muffins on it, and the neighbor told me yesterday that she will give my plate back soon, that she hasn't had time to make anything yet.  I felt terrible, and told her she's not obligated to put anything on my plate for us, and she was confused as to why I thought she might give my plate back empty.  I hope she didn't think I don't want her baked goods, or am in a hurry to get my plate back...

If you go to dinner at someone's  home, and they ask you to bring a salad, dessert, etc. (which is common, because upon being invited you should ask what you can bring!), you leave the leftovers and your dish at the host's home, unless all the food you brought was eaten, then you can take your dish home.  The hostess may prepare and "itacate" (see post below), and send you with your dish immediately, or she may not return your dish for sometime. 
When JP and I were in the US, it was soon our turn to bring dessert to our small group.  I made a cobbler and brought a tub of ice cream.  When the group was over and we were getting ready to leave, the hostess handed me the almost empty cobbler dish and the half-eaten tub of ice cream.  JP and I insisted that she keep both things, while she said that she didn't want to have ice cream in the house because she'd have to give some to her boys, and may not remember to bring my dish back.  Then I remembered that in the US, you take whatever is left of what you brought with you!  JP felt bad that we ended up taking the food home, but we both had to tell ourselves that we did the right thing for US culture!

Living in two cultures keeps us on our toes!

The Itacate (ee-tah-KAH-tay)

The great thing that happens in Mexico when you go to a large meal at someone else's home.  The doggie bag.

If you're invited to someone's home for a meal and there are a lot of leftovers, the hostess may prepare an ITACATE for everyone to take home with them.  This generally consists of a few disposable containers full of several dishes that were served that day (and sometimes some other random thing from the hostess' fridge, or at least that's what happens to us when we go to JP's grandma's house!)

A good Mexican wife must have her stash of these in the house for preparing itacates:

Yogurt and sour cream containers, any type of disposable, yet reusable dish is great for sending guests home with salads, rice, meat dishes, desserts, or whatever was served at your home.  The guest gets another meal out of it, the hostess doesn't have loads of food clogging up her fridge, and the guest doesn't need to bring the dish back!  This is win-win in my book!  :)

A Growing City

This is (my) translation of an article about Queretaro that came from this site 
-- Explanations in italics are mine --

In light of the upcoming World Population Day on July 11, the INEGI (-- Mexican Census bureau --) revealed a few statistics about Queretaro's population.

There are around 1,974,000 people residing in Queretaro, which makes it the 22nd largest metro area in the country.  In just 50 years, Queretaro has QUINTUPLED its population, going from 286,000 people in 1950 to 1.4 million in 2000.  This year, it is estimated that the city will reach 1.97 million people. 

On the other hand, the fertility rate has gone down, going from 3.5 in 1990 to 2.3 in 2010, and it keeps going down.  It is also said that the life expectancy is the highest in the country, with the average being 78 years. 

Another effect of the changing demographic is the increase in the proportion of adults (30 to 59 years old) and senior citizens (60 years and older).  These two age groups now represent 53.1 percent of the population, all of whom are eligible for health and social services.  It is expected that these age groups continue to be the majority through 2030.  

-- In most other cities in Mexico, the younger age groups - under 30 years old - tend to be the vast majority, sometimes being as high as 75% of the population --

Finally, one other aspect that is important to mention is that the rate of marriages as gone down in our city in the last decades, going from 7.1 marriages per 1,000 people in 1993 to 4.5 marriages per 1,000 people in 2010.  The divorce rate has been increasing.

Taco Juan

**(Due to the fact that this is not our personal story, we've changed some names)**

We may have mentioned Juan before, he's the owner of our favorite taco restaurant the Rancho.  He's been coming to our church since sometime before JP and I returned from the USA last year.

The other night, we went to the Rancho with some friends after JP preached at their church.  In a rare moment of non-busyness in the restaurant, Juan told us his story.

Our good friends, Luis and Sandy, had been going to the Rancho for some time when they invited JP and I (who, at the time, were engaged - circa 2008).  We immediately recognized the world's best taco upon eating there, and have been regular customers ever since.  Luis and Sandy had shared a bit with Juan about salvation in Christ.  He was interested in spirituality and was open to hearing what they had to say.  JP and I also talked a little with him about Christ.

Juan has a sister who lives in Canada, and she accepted Christ.  Because her town doesn't have a church service in Spanish, she looked for sermons online and found a Mexican church that offered live-streamed services every Sunday, so she began to tune in regularly.  Juan went to visit his sister in Canada, and she also told him about Christ, and encouraged him to attend a Christian church.

In 2011, our church, Horizonte Queretaro, got a new pastor.  He and his wife moved up from another city, and we took them to the Rancho.  They were hooked, and went frequently.  They, too, began sharing with Juan about salvation in Christ.

One day, Juan's sister came to Queretaro to visit.  She was in the restaurant talking with him about attending the church she tuned into online, which happened to be here in Queretaro, when suddenly that pastor walked into the Rancho!  It was Kike (KEE-kay), the pastor of Horizonte Queretaro, who was by that time a friend of Juan's.  Juan found all this to be too much of a "coincidence," and decided to go to church.  He began attending Horizonte regularly, then accepted Christ!  He now uses his restaurant as a way to point others to Christ as much as possible.

We had heard bits and pieces of Juan's story, but it was amazing to hear him tell how God orchestrated everything to bring him to where he is today!

(Just a side note: since me and another girl listening that night are from the United States, Juan piped up that he had spent some time in the US too.  "But it's in a place where hardly anyone from here (Queretaro) knows of - Portland Oregon."  Couldn't be closer to home for JP and I.  Literally!)

JP going after the "trompo" of BBQ  pork at the Rancho

My FAVORITE dish, BBQ pork and cheese taco

Every Four Years...

Every four years, this exciting time comes around in Mexico.  (No, it's not presidential elections).  It's THE WORLD CUP!! 
The vast majority of the world sits in front of TV screens at home, in restaurants, in parks, etc. to cheer on their country's soccer team, or their favorite team if their country didn't go.  Events are rescheduled, school (and sometimes work) is skipped.  (Imagine if the Super Bowl happened once a week for a month, and wasn't necessarily on Sunday evening.)  Mexico is VERY enthusiastic about this event, and so are JP and I, even though we haven't been into regular season Mexican League soccer in the past few years.
Each country that goes to the World Cup is guaranteed three games.  Mexico and the US have both played their three, and will each get at least one more.  We're rooting for both of our countries, as well as Costa Rica (doing VERY well, and is also moving forward) and Honduras (unfortunately did not move forward). 

Here's just a little of the excitement! 

We went to a park in downtown Queretaro to watch one Mexico game.

Cheering on Honduras and USA, watching games by internet

We watched another Mexico game with friends at a cafe

Found In Translation

A new ministry was kind of dropped in our laps a couple of months ago - one that was unexpected (and I *may* of actually said "Um, yeah, that's not happening" upon being asked to do it).  

At Horizonte Church, we had quite a few foreigners for some time now - three ladies from the US, two guys from Germany, an Australian guy, a Costa Rican girl, and an Argentine guy all fairly involved in church, serving and attending regularly.  We all speak Spanish at least conversationally.  Then all of a sudden, a few foreign families who work in a new car industry in the area began coming.  Most of them do not speak much Spanish.  The end of February I was asked to translate the service simultaneously for one such family.  Now, you have to understand, there's simultaneous translation for a church service, then there's simultaneous translation for OUR church services - our pastor speaks incredibly fast, and uses an insane amount of slang and plays on words.  So this was a huge challenge.  JP started doing the translation, as my hearing isn't what it should be, and he does a great job.  I'm not sure if word was spread about the translation of our 11:00 service, or what, but we now have two people from the US, two Bulgarians, and four from Africa coming on a regular basis.  It's so neat to see how God brought people who don't yet speak Spanish to be able to hear His Word preached here in Queretaro.  As I said before, the translating is not easy.  But it's been a blessing to be a part of this!

In the picture below:

The top part, JP is translating the service.

The bottom part, Pearlie (one of the USA girls) is translating children's Sunday School.

Just Another Wednesday Night at Tacos!

Coffee Time!

JP and I had the opportunity to help out at RenovArte Cafe - the ministry place of our friends Phil and Sandy - for six weeks while they were in Australia visiting family.  If you didn't know from previous posts, RenovArte exists, not only to provide great coffee and treats to local college students, but mainly to build relationships with them and share about a relationship with Christ.

JP was in charge of finances and buying product for the cafe during six weeks.  This was way more time-consuming than we had imagined, but it was a really great experience!  Apart from our main ministry activities, at least one of us was at RenovArte each day for a couple hours to make sure all necessary items were in stock, and sometimes to help take orders and serve the things that we know how to make, like sandwiches.  I (Jessica) also got involved in the English conversation group for a group of business men and women that Phil started.  I am happy to be able to continue this even though Phil and Sandy are back from their first trip to Australia in over three years!  (Phil is Australian and his family lives there).  They returned the end of January, and we are now back to "normal" ministry activities.  But we love to drop in and have a good coffee at RenovArte, or take someone who we are sharing Christ with for a good atmosphere to chat.

 

Me with some of the cool staff at RenovArte!

Christmas and New Year!

 

We spent Christmas in Queretaro this year, enjoying both Mexican and United States Christmas traditions! 

Above, we are at the annual Queretaro Bible story parade, getting our favorite goodies from the food booths!

 Below, watching "A Christmas Story!"

 

We went to Mexico City for New Years to visit JP's dad.

 

 

JP with the Happy New Year 2014 sign in Mexico City

 

Jessica's favorite animals at the Chapultapec Zoo - Giraffes! 

 

JP with his favorite, the Rhino!

 

With the Independence Angel behind us

 

 

Vic (dad) and JP going into a below-ground museum in Mexico City

 

Us with Grandma Conchita and Vic