Registering for things. I went today to Intercam, a service that will change dollars or euros to pesos and vice versa, cash checks, send money to local or international banks, etc. They usually gove a better exchange rate than the bank, not by much, but hey every penny..ok or peso...counts, right? I think I shared about this place last week, when I was going crazy driving back and forth between there and the bank, trying to get the best rate and not be in line for an hour....both places were gonna be closed Thurs and Fri for the Easter weekend holiday. Anyway I ended up changing my money there, but not with the best rate cause I wasn't a "client" yet, and standing in the at the bank too ha ha. I kept going back and not having the right documents....fun day...oh wait...NOT!

So today I dropped in there, they're only open until 2pm every day, so I went this morning, and yipee I had all the right docs; passport, FM2 visa, and the telephone bill to prove residence (luckily it's in my name). Anyway, if I had signed up at this place when we first got here I would have gotten frustrated, probly mad, indignant for the ridiculous things they were asking me, but now I understand this is Mexico, and things are different. Besides all that, my SS#, what town I was born in, but not my mother's maiden name ....but I did have to mark a diagram by writing in cross streets and my street, then describe my house; second house on the left, one story, red, no trees on the street, kinda crazy eh? But you know what? Things don't get mailed here, bills or other wise. Someone drops them off in your mailbox. The electric bill and the water bill are not even in envelopes, but the telephone bill does. The cable bill doesn't come at all; it just shows up on your television screen from about the first week of the month until it's due on the 14th...unless you pay right away..then it drops off.

But it's good to have a backup plan, a second choice for moving or changing money. If we ever sell the Guerrero house, we're gonna want to move some of that money back into the states, and I'm not sure I want to do it thru our bank here,maybe this service is better...but I'm pretty sure I have some time to figure it out ha ha.

Ok now for dear diary...Spanish class is going good. I realize I just gotta let it go and not pressure myself to learn....just get what I get when I get it. And tiny things are coming together that I know make bigger things. My students in English class told me my Spanish is "more better" ha ha than it was when I first started teaching them. And "more better" gave us a topic for discussion for class!
So we have a special project, top secret going on...I came up with the idea and figured either they'd tell me NO WAY or they'd think it was a good idea. Luckily they all love it! I showed them the words to the song "Still the One" by Orleans...you know..."..we're still havin fun and you're still the one...". I told them about the song, it's a love song, but fun, and happy. Anyway the directors out there are this couple; Karen and Mark, actually they are Living Stones Ministry. I am not into their Christian beliefs, but you know what? I am into helping people who need help. They feed people 5 days a week, they teach gardening, and if you're interested they go to your house and help you start your own garden. I mean these guys grow worms! They grow worms to put into the ground to enrich it. They recycle, they have a free spay/neuter clinic twice a month. There are literally hundreds of stray dogs just here in Puerto Penasco. Sometimes I know Karen feels like she hardly makes a dent, but they also rescue dogs, they take care of them and move them to a no-kill shelter north of town, and then up to another no-kill shelter in Arizona. They give away dog food, and flea/tick medicine.

There's a new project that's already growing; sewing. They got sewing machines donated and now are getting together with another community center in town who also has a group of women who want to participate- they are sewing purses and bags, maybe clothes, I'm not sure. But a woman from San Diego is contracting them by the piece, so they make something, they get paid. She then sells the stuff online.

They make purses and mats from recycled plastic bags. They look amazing, and the mats work really good as door mats, you know? They also do knitting, hats and scarves, cell phone holders, purses, and they sell them at this weekend market. They teach kids English. They have health awareness classes. They help people to get community service hours and then this other group will build them a house! A tiny house, yes, but better than the cardboard house or the house made of pallets, or the back of a car or an old trailer. So they do a lot. They give people hope. They bring hope. It's pretty damn cool.

Ok- so back to our top secret project. This song could be song between spouses, right? It's about love and how after all these years, you are still the one I want to be with. SO- I played the song on my telephone and we all agreed- let's do it. So I passed out sheets with the words, and we only got thru the first stanza this week. Some of the words are hard to wrap your mouth around when you're first learning a language. So we went slow, and they wrote the words phonetically for themselves. So Wednesday I made CD's with the song on it so everybody can practice at home. Some of them are going to put them on their phones, but some have no phones, and some have no cd players, either, but I heard a couple of them talking and they will work it out. So- they will learn the song, probly in about a month, then we're gonna have Karen & Mark stand together, and they will sing it to them as a gift, a gift of thanx for everything they do. So cool eh? And the students are having fun. That's important cause they struggle, we struggle, with pronunciation, with remembering...make sentences...and I have a feeling it's the problem I had in Calif and Southern Mexico- nobody to practice with...So I also started an extra class on Wednesdays for the students who are really having a hard time, and I enjoy that smaller class too. You will have to stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Oh and  I almost forgot- I wanted to say I love looking at my stats- the most pageviews of my blog are United States, Mexico, Russia, Germany, Ukraine, UK....then "onesy-twosy" for lots of places like South Korea, Panama, Jordan, France, China....etc etc etc

Viva!!

I read a local post about someone seeing grunions on the beach, thousands of them....ok a grunion is a tiny fish that comes up on the beach, usually by the light of the moon, wiggles down into the sand, lays eggs and is back out with the next wave. But these came out in the evening, before dark. There are 2 types; on the East Coast they do come up the beach in the darkness, so not sure why these are coming up in the light. But these are California grunions and (of course) I googled them and it says they come up 2-6 nights after a full moon- notice it says nites, so maybe daylight savings time got them mixed up. And even though they don't have a huge population, a female can lay as many as 18,000 eggs over a season, which is March thru August. Of course in the post I read, comments were made about these grunions being afraid to come out after dark in Mexico..yeah ha ha ha ha. If we were down in Guerrero I could understand, but here, it's pretty safe at nite...even in the water...

This afternoon we went down to the beach at Las Conchas, the area I like the best cause of the lack of rocky shelves, ect. As soon as we hit the beach we saw a school of dolphins not all that far out. It was low tide, just starting to think about coming back in, and we walked really far out and were still just waist high. By then the dolphins had moved on. I'm sure they were eating cause there were lots of seagulls and pelicans out there as well, and they all moved on except for a few birds. It was very cool to watch the pelicans close up, in Playa Ventura they flew close to the shore and I had never realized just how cool pelicans are before watching them fly, spot something, and dive in! Today I was much further out in the water than I ever was in Playa Ventura, but that's because this is not open ocean. I believe it's about 150 miles across at it's widest point, and 700 miles long, so it's not just a bay- but the waves are not crashing in like open ocean. The distance we were out there today would have put us beyond the wave break in Playa Ventura.

Once Everado did find himself out beyond where the waves were forming, and he got kinda stuck...At first I had tried to swim out to him but he was waving me away...When he finally came in, our friend Gume told us that he had been watching him, thinking, crap, I'm gonna have to go out there and save that bastard ha ha. Everardo said he was getting kinda worried out there, but he finally crossed back in. The problem was, it was end of the summer, and not the best time, not the safest time to be out very far in the ocean. It was the rainy season; hurricane season on the eastern side of Mexico, and we got the tail end of the storms being so far south like we were. They told us in Jan-March we could go way out, that it was shallow way out, that the ocean was super calm, but of course by then, we were up here. You think- the rainy season? Why were you swimming in the rainy season? Well it was raining but it was still 100 degrees outside, and the ocean water was still warm like a bathtub, so yeah, we went swimming every day, rain or shine. But the ocean was rough, and swimming, even close in, was tiring. You got pushed all over the place. So when we could go from the beach to Chela & Gume's pool- now that was refreshing. There the water was still warm, but you could simply laze about, float, chat....

So today was the first time I went swimming and the water was cool but not cold. It was nice, oh! And I saw this really long fish jump in and out of the water..3 times! Not like an arc- the way you think of a fish jumping. This was like almost straight up, then he went back in tail first. I yelled hey did you see that!, and that! and that! Poppi was laughing. We floated around until Sam was really huffing and puffing, and then we moved in closer to where he could stand up (ha ha) and then threw the ball for him some more. Yeah, Sam brought the ball out in the water with him. He has gone back to being ball obsessed....Well to be fair there's no sticks on the beach to throw into the water...

Then we went back in to the beach to relax on our towels and watch Sam dig holes in the sand...and a lady walked by and asked if I wanted a massage...she had a table and everything. Well being married to a fellow vendor is good- I had a massage, about 45 min, for 200 pesos , about $16usd. Very nice. Looks like the weather will be shorts and tees from now on..yipee.

In the Northern Sonora town of Caborca, on April 7, 1857, Henry Alexander Crabb stood with his hands tied above his head to a post in front of him, his back turned to a firing squad. Moments later some 100 bullets riddled his body, then he was beheaded.

Next week there's a festival in Caborca celebrating his execution. If you google this guy, he was part of an effort to claim more of Mexico for the United States. It was happening alot back then, ans after losing most of what is now California and most of Texas, well maybe the Mexicans were sick of the gringos trying to take their land eh? Anyway there's a rodeo and bbq, dancing and costumes. Don't know if we will be able to go, but it sounds like fun.

Today, Easter Sunday was pretty quiet. All the altars I saw along the street on Friday were gone; but I'm not sure if they were up yesterday or not. Still alot of traffic, and Everardo said the beaches were still pretty crowded, but when I went out to the store in search of a bunny for my hunny, I saw the parking lot at the bus station was completely packed- never saw more than a couple of cars there before. Probly alot of people heading out, but more to arrive tomorrow since the kids are out of school for 2 weeks here, so families are coming both weeks, or just one or the other.

Yes my Easter plan was a bit late, but better late than never. Everardo was out of here this morning as I was getting out of the shower so I knew I had time. I searched the wallmart like store for any kind of Easter stuff, but they don't do Easter Bunny and/or colored eggs here. BUt I went to the baby and toddler section and found a very nice stuffed bunny, all floppy, pink with green, yellow and blue flowers all over him. I snatched him up, grabbed a curly ribbon and some m&m's...oh yeah and some eggs and rushed home to boil and color them. Oh yeah no egg coloring kits in Mexico ha ha. But- my dry erase highlighter pens I use for my students- well they are orange and green and red, yellow, blue...so after I put the eggs in the fridge for an hour, I colored them with the pens. I only did 8, cause how many hard boiled eggs can we eat, right? Actually I like to smush them up with mayo and a tiny bit of mustard to be egg salad and eat it on bread, usually adding either a slice of cheese or a layer of potato chips. Yumm. But no chocolate bunnys, and no chocolate eggs that have carmel inside. Oh I crave carmel. There is no carmel in Mexico. Well not in Guerrero and not in Sonora...the closest you can get is a Milky Way bar.

Funny the things you can't get. Carmel, sharp cheddar, wide egg noodles, any kind of sauce for pasta besides something tomato-y. Once in a while some store will have like 3 jars of some kind of sauce, usually cheese, and NEVER pesto. The pasta is a weird one, there's shelves of rice and beans, and spaghetti noodles, and the little shells, but no wavy noodles for just pasta. My friend Pam is coming back from visiting her daughter in Colorado and has promised to try to remember to get me some noodles...

It's a little after 8pm and we have the window open- yippee cause Poppi put a screen up; it's a narrow space, but fresh air without flies during the day or mosquitos at nite...but the smell of jasmine is wafting in. It smells so wonderful. And it's coming from the tree right outside! I googled it (of course) and can find no reference to a jasmine "tree"...but those tiny white flowers are growing out of the tree. I love the fragrance so much. At my other houses we always had the vines growing and this time of year when it blooms, the air is just filled with sweetness, it makes me think of spring, of green, and that life is good. I got to talk to both daughters this weekend, and Everardo came home early today...and he has tomorrow off. Yippe

This week coming up is property tax, and taxes...got to figure out how to sign from here; but they MUST have the option of electronic signature- guess I'll find out tomorrow. Oh...and rent....