Yup... Northern Mexico.
I've been sitting on this post for a few days, wondering how do you communicate this to people- espescially those of you in Canada and Northern US.
I must admit, I was ignorant of the fact that it gets cold here in the winter time. Not Saskatchewan cold... Not Ontario at it's coldest cold, but cold nevertheless.
It wouldn't seem so cold if we had heat in the houses, but most places don't. We are very fortunate to have a mobile home. It is not Concrete Block construction. We have friends here who have a nice home of concrete block walls with tile floors. And their house is cold- almost all the time these days. The other day when they woke up- they could see their breath. The morning temperature (and likely their house temperature) was about 5C or 41F. Most homes here are concrete block walls, which take longer to heat up in the milder parts of the day. Our house was about 50 (10C). We have a small oil-radiator heater which is most needed in the mornings, but you cannot have the heater and either the kettle, microwave or toaster on at the same time or else our main outside breaker busts and we need to reset it. It can only really heat up one small room adequately, but cuts down the chill a bit in the living room/ kitchen/ dining room area. People here are a bit surprised that we are feeling cold- "aren't you from Canada" they say "where it is REALLY REALLY cold?" .... and we are... the difference being that in Canada we go from our heated homes to our heated cars to our heated churches and heated grocery stores. Whereas here- for all but about an hour a day (12:00-1:00) it is 13C or usually less in the house, in the church or in the store.
We are by no means complaining, we are just incredibly surprised a the depth of the humid cold and the effects of cold ocean winds too. We expected a lot of different things here in Mexico, but to be cold was not one of them!
SCHOOL STUFF
I registered the boys in the private school yesterday. We pay for it on the 9th of January, but in the meantime need to purchase about $400.00 worth of uniforms for the 3 boys. We are looking forward to this new venture in schooling with the hopes that our kids will learn Spanish as well as core subjects. The public school was not equipped to help our kids out in this way. We still need to have an additional $250.00/ month for tuition raised and are trusting the Lord for that! The other blessing is that the schools go full day (8:00am-3:00pm) which give us better opportunity to learn Spanish. We are looking at Spanish lessons 3 days a week for an hour a day at a language school we found here in Rosarito. The cost is CANADIAN$300 / month total for Shar and I, if you could remember that in your prayers as well!
The kids classrooms are just concrete block rooms with concrete floors and a tin roof. In the morning it is about 6-7C outside and in their classrooms too, which makes learning a bit difficult! It makes writing almost impossible with such cold hands!
THAT FLEA BITTEN VARMINT!
We brought our cat from Canada down to Mexico with us- His name is Rosie. Rosie the Boy-Cat. Rosie has fleas. Rosie has lots of fleas! Rosie, like most cats, loves comfortable, warm places to sleep. So Rosie the flea-bitten Canadian boy-cat has been sleeping in with Eljah, our oldest son. The other day, Elijah woke up with a bunch of red spots on him! No fever, no lethargy, no sore throat- just red spots. So we took him to the Cruz Roja (Red cross). What I never knew before is that red cross doesn't just provide emergency medical relief, they are the main provider of medical services and ambulance services in developing world countries. Tijuana has one main large hospital and some red cross stations across the area. This one in Rosarito requires you to pay $7.00 to use it. The Doctor looked at Elijah, prescribed some antibiotics for possibly infected flea bites and sent us on our way.
That's when the fun started...
On the way home, I found a pharmacy on a side road. I took the corner at the light and as I was travelling up the road a police pick-up truck passed me. I saw in my rear-view mirror that he was turning around and I needed to turn around too, because the pharmacy was on the other side of the road. Soon enough the lights went on and I was being pulled over.
This is the first time I have been pulled over in our 4 months here, but not the first time a policeman has checked my ID. Ocassionally ( 3 times in last week and a half) there have been "roadblocks" by police in various parts of the city. When they see I don't have a front plate (SK no longer requires front plates) I get stopped and asked for license etc. These guys at the road blocks are armed to the hilt with machine guns and high powered rifles.
Once the policeman realized I live in Rosarito and am a missionary, he sent me on my way. There was no explanation as to why I was pulled over. I am glad my Spanish has progressed to the point that I can converse with the locals and explain where I live. I think it might help that I drive a 12 year old rusty vehicle and don't live in a condo or mansion by the ocean, but live in the "hills".
After that we went to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions. It was a topical anti-biotic cream, a no-perfume soap, an a penicillin-type suspension.
The issue was that the penicillin suspension was a powder in a jar with Spanish instructions. I read and re-read it several times, but still wasn't sure how to do it. So I "called a friend" as the old game show used to say... and it turned out that you add boiled and cooled water to the bottle and shake vigorously to make the liquid suspension. In Canada the Pharmacist does the mixing. They must cut down on drug costs here by letting you mix it yourself. And now we were good to go.
Remember- this all started with the flea bitten varmint.... let's get back to that...
We were over in the States early this week and got some flea spray and house spray for fleas at the pet store. so Shar took Rosie the Canadian flea-bitten boy-cat and thoroughly (and I mean THOROUGHLY) sprayed him and massaged into his fur the oily, flea kiling spray. After about 45 minutes of oily-dousing and massaging, the cat had had enough. ( actually he was done much earlier, but Shar is feisty and she handled that cat with gusto!) She finshed him off and let him go- this oily, stinky cat with attitude, hoping to hop into one of our beds to rub off the stinky flea oil. It is made from peppermint oil, cinnamon oil, lemongrass oil and some other oils. It basically smells like one of those cheap dollar store plug in room fresheners on steroids after a massive power surge. You can imagine this wet, oily cat walking around shaking his legs after every step, twitching relentlessly and rubbing on everything so as to share the joy of the smell.
We put him outside. Next time we saw him, he'd been rolling around in dirt. So now we have this wet, oily, stinky cat covered in fine clay dust- our previosly orange and white cat now looked like the stuff you pull out of the bagless vaccuum cleaner! Sharlene must love that cat, because now, rosie our canadian flea-bitten boy-cat was getting a bath. They both came out of it ok.
Only now it's almost like the cat is avoiding us for some reason. He doesn't come around much anymore... hopefully he'll get over it and hopefully, the flea business will be done with. Until next month when we need to do it all over again!
Thank you for partnering with us! We appreciate the part you are willing to play in this ministry. Have a great Christmas- May God bless you and keep your family this year, may you renew your sense of wonderment about the coming of God to earth to set us free!
Until Next time,
Mike for the McDonald's
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