Whats in the Headlines

I have been wanting to start this as a series of blogs. I hope I can get one out each week. The idea here is to show those of you who do not live here that we are not living in a dangerous, third world, ignorant country. The people here live happy lives and think about a lot of the same issues as the people in the states and other countries. Mexican culture is that slow change is better than quick change and although in most cases this drives me up the wall I have also seen that it works a lot of the time. So here is the first of my Whats in the Headlines posts. Basically almost daily I grab a free edition called Publimetro. Publimetro from what I understand started here in Mexico but is now one of the larges world wide free publications. There are about four free news publications here in town but I have found this one to be the most unbiased and one that covers all issues from public to private, from government to famous people, and they even give a reasonable area to what is going on with all the drug stuff. The thing I like is that with each of these issues they lay out the facts. They don't over or under so any of it. For each article I'm not going to go into to much detail as far as this blog goes, but if I post about an article and you want to hear more on that specific topic I could write a second post about it, as always just let me know.

Wednesday 11 of January 2012
The Cathedral is suffering with time. With continual traffic and mistreatment from people the cathedral which is an important symbolic for the city is falling apart. So far they have only managed to raise 10% of the cost to renovate. This is truly a beautiful building but the paper is saying that their is much work to be done. They believe the work will not be completed until after the middle of February . Its going to cost10,000 pesos most of which will be paid by the secretary of culture.

Explaining the paranoia: Specialist talk about why people believe in rumors that are found in the internet. Basically the week before someone spread rumors about kidnappings from a government school. Almost  a third of people kept their kids home from school Monday threw Friday the following week. From the first day the state of Jalisco and the City was stating that their was no proof and no missing children reports. In the end it all proved to be rumors but now people are concerned as to why this rumor started and why so many people believed it even when officials where saying otherwise. 

Thursday the 12 of January 2012
Asking the internet about sex: Publimetro did a poll asking teenagers who the talked to about sex. The options were parents, teachers and the internet. A whoping 67% said they got their answers online, which isn't surprising but at the same time sad and scary. 25% said they asked their parents. I'm curious to how this would pan out in the states. And 18% said they asked their teachers. They noted that pregnancies cause 6% of drop outs during grade school and junior high in Jalisco. Within Jalisco their were 69,800 pregnancies in 2011, out of those 18,882 were under the age of 19. But here is the good thing about all this. This  information hit the front page of the news paper and talked about how the government is determined to have more education for teenagers about the subject. Although this may seem a little late I'm just glad they are taking note and planning on changing. Along with that they are trying to educate the public which is number one for change.

Thousands run to the federal office to register their voting card on the last day available. Ok there is not much to say here but laugh. And really I think the same thing happens in the states.

100 kilos of marijuana was confiscated inside a packing company.


Obviously there is a lot more in each paper but this is what is being placed on the front page.

Also one of the days I received an extra free booklet made by the Secretary of communications and transportation. It was a drivers manual. I'm not sure how many of you remember the manual you use to study for your drivers test but more or less it was the same. It also had stickers you could put on your car that said: Don't message while driving, Don't drive when your tired, Don't obstruct handicapped entrances, I have kids and pets in my back seat (the picture of the kid has a seat-belt), And I'm a responsible driver (again the picture has a man with a seat belt). Yeah for trying to make driving and streets safer here in Mexico. Im sure not a lot of people actually took the time to read the booklet but like I said educating the public is the first step to change and I think Mexico is well on its way to becoming a better place to be.

Hope you enjoyed and see you next week. ;)

Homemade

One thing I have loved about being a stay at home mom is that I get to put all my craft ideas to use. In Mexico when they build houses they dont seem to give any thought to the windows and the fact that you may want curtains. This has been a hurdle for every place we have moved into. This new house is no different. I used the curtains I had already made for the large back door and window but nothing even resembling these would work on the front windows. The windows go all the way to the ceiling and in the upstairs bedrooms they go all the way to one wall leaving no room for hanging rods. they also open inward which posed more problems. What we came up with in the end was a thin metal pipe secured toward the ceiling with a hook or nail (or tape in some instances) and I hand made the curtains to be long enough and easy enough to open and close by adding loops to the top. The picture of the curtain in my room is not updated (the black and white one) I have now put shower curtain rings into the top to make it easier to open and close. It actually doesn't look as tacky as it sounds. ;)
In the last photo is a picture of my youngest daughters name. We had one for Alana that was given to us which is very nice. I felt Joslin needed one to. This is made from sheets of thick plastic which came off of a metallic shelf we had gotten for free. I took the sheets off and saved them in case I could use them later. They did come in handy after all. My favorite projects are ones like this one where Im able to find things from around my house, for cheap or free and make them something fun.

My first Mexico Waterfall

Ok I wrote this post over a week ago and thought I posted it. Well I didnt so here it is. Ill try to read through it really fast here and see if I need to make some revisions.
So last week I was privileged enough to get to see my first waterfall and guiser (sp?) all in one day. This experience was not quite as exciting or fun as I had hoped it would be. Mainly because it wasn't in the mountains instead the waterfall was going down my stairs and the guiser was on my back patio.
After a night of wonderful rain fall I woke up to a flooded house. Each morning after rain we would have random puddles in the house and the trail from where it came had dried up. This morning when Issac was giving my my good by kiss he said, well we got enough rain to see where the water is coming from. Its coming from the door to the upstairs patio. Oh I thought half asleep well at least now we know, Ill wipe up the puddles later and find something to clog the door.
Little did Issac know from walking through the hall that all the water from the patio door had actually diverted itself into the girls room, with a small trickle going down the stairs and also filling the play room. When Joslin woke up I went plowing into at least a full inch of water in their room. I had no idea how bad it was at first but when I pulled their full comforter off their bed and threw it under my feet I knew I was in for it. The blanket just filled with water and sank to the bottom and I was still standing in a lot of water. As I'm walking down the stairs holding Joslin I notice a medium size trickle of water that is flowing down the stairs. Wow I think that must be alot of water in their room. Once downstairs I see that the trickle is not going out the front door but into the play room. I take a quick peak and realize that there is about a 4-5 foot area that has also almost an inch of water. My kitchen was also flooded but not as bad and was from the back door.
Once I fed and dressed the girls I shut them in my room with some toys. This may sound a bit cruel but for one my room is always off limits for play time so they thought they were getting a real treat. And two it was just dangerous to have them running around anywhere else. My heart sank as I went into the girls room and remembered that Alanas book shelf had broke a few days before and all her hardbound books were on the floor close to the window. At this point I wasn't sure how that much water got in so I was a little anxious. For about 2inches around her books the room was dry, the rest was soaked. That was a huge sigh of relief. Thankfully we don't keep a lot of toys in their room so the floor was pretty clean, she did have a cloth basket full of dress up cloths that got soaked and I threw it in the wash. After up turning the couch in her room so it could begin to drain I got the squidgy. I figured since the water was naturally going down the stairs thats where I would put it so here came my first waterfall. It took me a little over an hour to get all the water out of her room. Every time I would get the floor dry a new puddle would form. Finally I realized it was still coming in through the door even though the rain had stopped. Upon investigation I see that the small patio area has about 3-4 inches of water that was being relieved into the house. At first I saw no drain but when I did find it it was clear but had no water draining. So I went out to the back porch to find the outlet. This is so odd the pipe obviously was originally set under the ground of the back patio to go somewhere out side of the house.But I assume it got clogged past repair and since it was now under a concrete patio they just smashed a whole in the plaster to show part of the pipe and put a small whole about the size of a squished quarter. This little whole appeared to have a a rock in it. So I get a stick and poke it out, then a little trickle of water starts but there is what appears to be a huge hairball there. Oh yes so gross, but I continue to poke and silly me Im squatting right in front of it. I then get sprayed head to toe with gross who knows whats in it water. But it was actually really funny so even standing there alone I had to laugh at myself. I didn't have to clear the whole at this point the water did it for me. Here is a picture of that lovely spray of water. When Issac came home he made the whole into a baseball size and we have had no problems since. Well you know the little puddles that are inevitable in houses in Mexico but thank God no more flooding.

El Patio

Sometimes I forget that I live in a place where things are way different than where I'm from. And even though most of my readers are also living in this same place not all are. I recently made a comment on facebook about hanging out on my roof. The American in me still calls it my roof and not mio patio and yet I think of it as my patio and speak of it as one. So this quite confused a friend or mine. At the end of this post is a link to my FB page where I posted some pictures of my current and first patio. The patios here in Mexico are a great thing because in a lot of towns the houses are literally built on top of each other. To the point that they don't even make an extra wall and just use the wall from the house that is already up. And they are built right on the side walk or with just enough room for a small car port. We have even seen car ports so small that when they put their gait up they have to put a little bubble on it that protrudes into the sidewalk in order to fit their car inside. Needless to say many people do not have yards. I should also mention that houses in Mexico are built in square shapes with flat tops. The only people who have yards are those who live in el rancho and its more like a field. Some people in town here have just enough grassy or dirt area out front, out back or actually in the center of their houses to have a small garden of flowers and herbs. In all the places we have lived our roof is our yard. Mind you the landing is not quite as soft when the girls take a tumble but its an area outside that is our own. The roof always has a set of stairs leading up to it and not always with a railing. Iv been in a few houses where the stairway makes me quite nervous. Because ours is an apartment building the stairs run up the middle of the building and has railing on the side with out a wall. In what I think is the first picture of the four you can see the door that goes inside and leads to the stairwell. The majority of Mexicans do not use a dryer for their laundry and so this roof is also used for their laundry and have built in lavaderos which are sinks with wash boards in them. You can see ours right next to the washer in one of the pictures. Before I moved here to be honest Mexico was the only place I had ever seen a washboard aside from old movies. And I swore I would never use it, and I don't to often. But they sure can be helpful when you have food or a stain stuck to a piece of clothing. As you can see from the picture the place you put your washer is open to the outside except on top. this totally freaked me out when I first moved here, I was sure we would be electrocuted after the first rain. But thanks to the outrageous price for electricity if you use over a certain wattage we unplug our washer after each use. And we have a cover on it as can also be seen in the photo. Because laundry is done outside I actually love doing it now. I take my time hanging and taking down he cloths and enjoy the sun on my face while doing it. When the girls are feeling up to it they play around up there with me while I hang and fold. It truly is a stress reliever for me now. During the warmer months we also have a small pool that we fill with water for Alana and I suppose this year Joslin also and we have a nice little table to have picnics at and Issac has a small grill to make us delicious food. So in an odd since our roof is our laundry room/back yard and we love it, I do look forward to the day we get to build our own house and can construct el patio how we want it and by them we will have lived in enough rentals to know exactly what we want. I hope this post was interesting to those of you not living here and maybe for some who do. For those who do if I left anything out please comment.

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