Esperando

Waiting in Spanish....

Part of living in Mexico is waiting...

Last week I was drafted to provide transportation for a medical visit for a little girl, Lupita. Lupita lives in the area I do my teaching and has contacts with a local pastor out there.

She has an issue with her nose-- The bridge of her nose does not narrow, it has expanded- in other words her nose is wider at the top, in between her eyes, than it is down near her nostrils. It has been like that for most of her 8 years and we're hoping we can do something about it...

Friday we had an 8:30am appointment at a hospital near the border in the Mexican side. It is about a 50 minute drive from my house to her house and another 50 minute drive to the hospital.

Our 8:30 appointment turned into 11:30 and after we went through 3 or 4 different smaller waiting periods during which they made other appointments and recorded her results... We finally got out of the hospital at about 1:00pm-- and went to go to lunch.

We got into a traffic jam and it took us 20 or 30 minutes to get 2 km and then we were off to take Lupita for pizza. Lupita has 11 brothers and sisters and they are all quite poor and so she does not get pizza very often- she and her 15 year old brother ate pizza like it was going out of style! They saved 3 pieces to share among their siblings.

I watched them eat-- and they (and Pastor Juan who was also with us) ate their pizza like a taco!- they put hot sauce on the pizza (like a tabasco sauce) and some chile peppers (not lupita - just the guys) and they then take the piece and either fold it up like a taco and eat it or rip pieces off te crust and pick up the cheese and toppings like they would with a tortilla! It was an interesting pizza experience- the only downside for the folks was that there was not any ketchup to put on the pizza... which Many Mexicans seem to like...

I dropped them off at the house and had to run across the border to get a new printer that was on sale. The radio called for a 45 minute wait a the border- it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes to get across---

all together i spent more time waiting then anything- but that is part of Mexico-- it sure has helped with my patience!

Waiting to hear from you,

Mike