NEW YEAR

Over a year has gone by and I find myself breaking the promise I made to all, that we would be back in July. It has been such a full year: filled with stress, pain, happiness, excitement, wonder, growth, beauty, anger… you name it. We’ve had more experiences this year than we probably even dreamed about, but we still miss our friends and family who still await our trip back. So why are we still here? Some may already know, some may wonder and some may have their own hypothesis, but for all, here is a synopsis of our year in Mexico.
Finding our way in Mexico was not terribly hard, taking in consideration that I had been away for over 13 years and had really not lived in this region at all. The hard part was finding a home. School had already been pretty much set for the boys so it all revolved around our house hunting. That was the biggest set back we encountered, it was depressing enough that we actually considered the idea of just turning back. We found out, the hard way, just how incredibly hard it is to rent in Mexico: few rental properties and unrealistic requirements for a contract. As luck had it, we found two houses in Coatepec that would fill most of our needs and were within walking distance from the boys’ school. We settled on a new one where the owner gave us preference and let us sign a contract without having a co-signer.
Our first month in the house was devoted to making it livable: furniture, appliances, dishes, pots… Prices used to be sooo much better in Mexico than they are right now. There are so many imported items that even Mexico made stuff has prices very close to imports. The market is also saturated by Chinese products… it sucks! No wonder Mexico has such a big rate of unemployment! But, finally, with a living room, a fridge, a coffee maker and pots, pans and dishes, we were set for the year long adventure.
As our stay in Coatepec progressed, we took about all the hikes we could find around the town. We would go to the main Plaza many times a week just to indulge in the many delicious local snacks offered from little carts there. The boys highly favored the handmade potato chips or the churro fritters, while Jevon relished more on the homemade ice cream (specially Macadamia and rice pudding) and I preferred the fried plantains with condensed milk. As our stomach got stronger, we went for hotdogs packed with homemade string cheese and hamburgers also made there in a cart at the Plaza, and the delicious corn on the cob.
Our weekends were filled with hikes or trips to the nearby waterfalls and parks, both around Coatepec and Xalapa. We also delighted the boys with trips to the local balnearios (pools) as well as the not so local: like Carrizal closer to the coast. We also made a few trips to the beaches near the port City of Veracruz, which was a very nice contrast to the cloud forest around Coatepec.
In and around Coatepec we tried every possible roast and bean of the wonderful coffee produced in the region. We pinpointed the best roasters and a few good spots to sip on the perfect cup of Java. There are about 20 different coffee places in a tiny town like Coatepec, and a lot more in Xalapa… oh, and to our relief and the safety of our taste buds: no Starbucks in sight… no over burnt coffee here! Our favorite so far is the dark roast with beans grown in the area of Xico.
In our own backyard we discovered many interesting species of plants and animal life, but more importantly, we discovered very simple and big hearted people that helped our transition be so much smoother.
Since our house was in a construction area overlapping with the cloud forest, it gave all of us a unique opportunity to learn about the region. We quickly befriended the workers who took it to themselves to “train” us to live in Coatepec. We learnt how to behave with the stray dogs (that
really did have an owner, but lived in the street), and we pretty much adopted a few of them feeding them and giving them love. We all were taught what bugs were better left alone and which ones were harmless (from the blue and pink winged grasshoppers to the Carnivorous beetles). We were introduced to a myriad of exotic fruits and edible flowers that grew freely around the area (like the Jinequil, the Berenjena– tree tomato and the Gasparito). We learnt about coffee fruit, to suck the pulp around the bean (very sweet) and to slather the juice to deter bug bites. The boys were taught how to use a Machete and ride horses. As for us, we were busy during the week but fascinated by all the knowledge these people passed on happily and freely.
It was through these hard working people that we understood more of the real history and culture of the area than from anybody else. True, they are economically poor, but their empirical and inherited knowledge is so rich! And they hurt as much as the Cloud Forest with the devastation the area is experiencing.
In the first six months we lived in Coatepec, we saw more than 70 acres of Cloud Forest disappear in front of our eyes. In the name of progress, construction moguls and even the city government, are leveling forest area to make way to new streets and new high class housing developments… That makes me so sad and so mad! There are many projects for rescuing the ecosystem, and then, the governments turns a blind eye to the tree-cutting going on at the foot of the Municipal President’s own home!
By the end of our first six months in Coatepec, we were enamored by the simple people of the town, and very disappointed with the government and its lack of vision…
The boys had a good first semester at school. The size of the little school as well as the philosophy (Waldorf) helped them with the hard transition of a new Country, new language, new culture and new people. Diego quickly made friends and found himself in the need to finally speak the language (which he had been resisting for years now). Armando quickly grasped the language that he still was missing and found his self esteem boosted by a less stressful academic system. Overall, they both experienced very positive changes that were very obvious to us by December. The school community was a delight to be part of. It was a very multicultural, artistic community that really helped us feel part of it.
At the beginning of our first year in Mexico, the boys had experienced a very hard transition. Armando was mad, Diego was confused. They both missed home and their friends and their toys… By December, they were really enjoying the trips to the Plaza to get treats, the trips to the Market to get fruits and look at the trinkets. By January, at the end of our stay at my parents’ home in Texas, they were both happy to come back to Coatepec.
January started 2008 in a nice way. We took a trip to El Tajin and Papantla, the home of Vanilla production in the Americas, and the birthplace of Vanilla production in the World! It was a fascinating stop that tweaked the boys’ interest a little bit more about Mexican history.
By then, we were nicely established, with good friends and pretty good familiarity of the region and set routines. Then changes started to happen a little more quickly. It was not just me doodling (designing) anymore, Jevon started to do some architecture. He started traveling to other areas of Mexico to survey and design eco-friendly residential developments. It was an extraordinary opportunity for him to get involved in a whole new kind of research and design. It was also a great opportunity for all of us to widen our people pool and get to meet other fascinating individuals.
Since I took over the walk-to-school responsibilities when Jevon was traveling, I also started to get more involved in school… which I had promised not to do this time around! So, first promise broken. It was then that an awful thing happened in her life that made the school principal (also Diego’s teacher) leave to hide with her family in the US. She is part of a high profile family from Mexico City and her father received a kidnapping threat that involved the whole family. Due to the serious need left at school by her unplanned departure, I became the new administrator at the kids’ school (part time) and also devoted time to translating for Diego’s new teacher (who spoke no Spanish!) and a little bit of counseling for staff and students. A lot of the internal workings of the school had seemed off track to us from the beginning, but then, from the inside, I soon pinpointed many problems that were hurting the development of the whole community… I started to devote more and more time to trying to fix these.
Our life suddenly started to wind up again… it had been so nice to slow down at first. Even if it was supposed to be part time, school seemed to suck up most of my free time and the weeks started to get pretty hard. Weekends were very welcomed. By this time, too, Zafra was in full swing!
Zafra is the time of the year when sugar cane crops are harvested and burnt. Veracruz is a main sugar cane producer, so, by November, soot starts flying all over. As soon as coffee harvest is over (October-November) everyone in the field turns to the sugar cane crops. By late February, you just long for clean air and no more flying burnt pieces of sugar cane.
So, with the over-work environment (I really need to learn to say no!) and high stress (nothing stresses me more than those events that involve my kids!) my health became rather brittle. And it seemed all of us were due for a really bad bout of sickness, which we had escaped for such a long time! We all got colds that turned into some sort of pneumonia. I developed asthma, Diego got severely dehydrated and Armando became a cough machine… even Jevon, who is always healthy, got a really bad case of the cold. Diego even visited the doctor across the street to get a try on alternative medicine (sound therapy) and homeopathy.
(To be continued...)