Visitors, Bastille Day, Househunting, etc.

We have been busy, mostly reading editorials about what is happening with the elections. You would think that my Spanish vocabulary would be growing by leaps and bounds with all the newspapers we’ve been reading, but I don’t want to stop reading and check the dictionary, so I just keep going and am not learning as much vocabulary as I should be. But I am learning a lot about the Mexican constitution and Mexican politics.

Last Sunday we went to México City to visit our nephew and his family from France who are taking an intensive 10 day tour of México. They will be seeing in a few short days, what it took us five long years to visit 30 years ago. I do not envy them. It just so happened that Sunday was the day of the big demonstration by Obrador. Traffic was stopped in downtown, and still is five days later with no end in sight, as his followers have decided to “camp out” until the Election Court caves in and recounts all the votes despite what the law says. They have already been counted in the most open and honest election in México’s history or probably any Latin American country’s history for that matter. But he won’t be happy until he wins. It will be an interesting test of wills, rule of law versus the potential of going back to the strongman system that México had for 70 years. Check here for some photos of walking down the Avenida Reforma which is usually jammed with traffic.

Friends in La Quinta Patio (Émerence is in the center)

We had Alain, Carinne and their daughter Émerence for a week or so in July. They had a car and saw a side of Mexico that Marie-Helene and Claire did not! They also got to visit Guanajuato, part of the Sierra Gorda and San Miguel by themselves. We took Émerence to the zoo outside Querétaro when they went to Guanajuato.

Émerence and Christiane at the zoo at Wameru

Christiane feeding the giraffe

Where'd the food go, little girl?

Just after they left, our next door neighbor, Coraline, the last of the French interns from Limoges, was afraid to be alone so she moved in with us for a week. Yesterday, she moved in with Julian and Pauline, and leaves for France tomorrow. I think she is ready to go home, but I hope she will have good memories of Mexico.

We had a July 14 party at our house and about 40 people showed up, American, Canadian, Mexican, and, of course French. As the Americans (except Mike), Canadians and French got tired and went home, the Mexicans were just getting started. Ramon played his guitar, tamborine and harmonica, and sang his Yucatecan call and response song to everyone’s delight. Mike stuck around long enough to dance with Emerance. And Hilario, who was last seen on this site back in March or April at the international guitar festival, played some great classical guitar. His buddy played some old favorites that everyone joined in on. And Christiane gave a nice little speech, in Spanish, about how we have been here such a short time, but already have so many friends and we look forward to getting know them over the years. I, for one, was very impressed, and surprised since she had not mentioned she was going to do this to me.

House update: We thought we had the owner back down to $880,000 (pesos, of course) in my recent post. Whoops! Turns out he had not discussed this with his sister after all, and they now wanted $930,000. We gave him a last, and written, offer of $880,000, and we offered to pay the agents fee, which he did not want to pay. We also gave him two days to think it over. Two days came and went with no response, and frankly, I was a little relieved. Now we could go on, and not be emotionally tied to a house we probably would not be able to buy anyway. Nevertheless, a day or two later the owner came back with an offer of $900,000 that, he said, would only be good for a week (trying to put the pressure on us, I guess.) I said no, and that we were looking elsewhere (Our friend Sylvia is looking for houses for us among friends of her mother-in-law) and would need at least a week and a half to see if we could get a better deal. He excused himself from the phone and talked to his sister in the background. When he came back on the line, he offered $880,000, and we could visit the Notario Publico the next day! Again, I said no, and that we really owed it to ourselves to look around some more. Since we are the only foreigners presently looking for places to fix up in the Centro Historico, I think it is finally dawning on him that what he wants and what the market (us, in this case) will bear are two different things, and he may have lost his chance to sell his house after 6 years.

I may have mentioned that Christiane and I are working with Niños y Niñas de México. It is a non-profit to help street children and their families. Bob got me started by asking me to replace him teaching computer classes to the kids, since Bob is getting a real job at the University of Querétaro. Maria got Christiane to help her baby sit the little ones when their mother’s come to the embroidery co-op on Wednesdays run by Deborah who also teaches an elementary school class. I quickly became the webmaster and Christiane got hooked into teaching kids to read and write, in Spanish of course. Now I go two mornings a week and Christiane goes three. What I really want to do is help with marketing the co-op, and this may yet happen. Anyway, please check out the preliminary Niños y Niños website at http://ninosyninas.atspace.com. Any suggestions or corrections are welcome.