Destination: Veracruz

The port of Veracruz (otherwise known as Veracruz, Veracruz) is one of my favorite cities in Mexico. When I lived in Puebla, we drove the five hours to Veracruz about once a month, leaving after Mario got off of work and arriving about midnight.  We´d first stop at El Gran Café La Parroquia and have a café con leche under the stars while watching the cargo ships in the port.

Taking the kids this time, the malecón (boardwalk) is still the best place to enjoy Veracruz.  The main reasons for this:  nieves and café con leche at the Parroquia are both very near the malecón.


Café con leche at El Gran Café La Parroquia is a bit on an institution in Veracruz.  One waiter brings a tall glass, filled with just a shot of espresso.  Then they ring for the milk man, who comes to the table armed with a kettle of steaming milk.  He then tops off the glass.  Mexicans generally prefer their coffee insanely sweet.  So don´t be shy--go ahead and add those three generous spoonfuls of sugar, and enjoy the Parroquia´s café con leche as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Nieves (sherbets) are Veracruz´s other taste sensation.  Decent sherbet is easy to find throughout the country, but the jarochos take their sherbet to a whole other level.  Furthermore, they have flavors that aren´t found readily elsewhere.  The nieve stands are happy to combine flavors in one cup, and that really is the way to go.  Try a coconut and passionfruit combination, mamey and strawberry, or vanilla and lime.  Trust me, vanilla sherbet is not at all related to that ho-hum vanilla ice cream!  My mother fondly remembers a peanut sherbet that she had in Veracruz 15 years ago--these sherbets are that memorable!

The road leading to the malecón from the zocalo is dotted with nieve stores.  Most have employees out on the sidewalk, trying to attract customers, belting out, "¡Güero, güera--nieve, nieve, NIEVE!"  At first that´s a little overwhelming, but it´s another of those decidedly Veracruzian touches.  May they never change.

The beach at Boca del Río

Being on the Gulf coast, stopping at the beach was a must.  There are decent beaches north of the city, others within walking distance of the malecón, and others by large hotels on the south end of the city.  Being blessed with a nearly endless supply of gorgeous beaches, most Mexicans consider the beaches near Veracruz to be substandard.  However, after visiting other beaches, on returning to Veracruz this year, I´ve reaffirmed my opinion that Veracruz´s beaches are still my favorites.  The sand might not be as pristine as the Yucatán, the waves are certainly calmer than on the Pacific (thank goodness), and in Veracruz there´s the ever-present cargo ships on the horizon.  But I think that´s precisely what I like about Veracruz.  Beachgoers don´t have to drive very far (if at all) from a busy, thriving city.  That, and the fact that crabs pop their heads out of the sand and scurry off sideways, fleeing curious children.  As ubiquitous as picture books make them, real, live crabs are hard to find on beaches today!

San Juan de Ulúa

Veracruz is one of the oldest cities in Mexico.  In fact, they´re gearing up to celebrate their 500th anniversary in 2019--they´re already selling commemorative T-shirts on the malecón!  But throughout history, Veracruz has been a great foothold for invaders coming into the country.  The Spanish established the port here, as they began their march to Mexico City, on their way to destroy the Aztec empire.  The French used the same port when they invaded in 1862, as the the did US when they invaded Mexico in 1914.  Pirates were also attracted to Veracruz.  So early on in Veracruz´s history, the fort of San Juan de Ulúa was built.  It no longer serves as a fort (or a prision), but is now a museum, giving visitors a glimpse into Veracruz´s history.  

Veracruz is a great place to visit, offering a little something for everyone--a modern city with a well-preserved colonial past, surrounded by accessible beaches, and filled with delicious restaurants and sights for visitors.  On the zócalo, it´s likely visitors will catch groups of older couples dancing danzón.  The cathedral´s stations of the cross are worth a view--they capture the passion of Christ with pictures of only Christ´s hands--impactful in its simplicity.  And for families, Veracruz boasts Mexico´s largest aquarium!  There´s something for everyone.

¡Viva Veracruz!

The Juárez Lighthouse

The Port Authority

Watching ships load while enjoying nieve.  

The road from the zócalo to the malecón.

Mid-Lent Confession

Now that we´re smack in the middle of Lent, the Catholic Women Bloggers Network themed their monthly blog hop around "My Real Feelings About Confession".  Appropriate for the season.


Does anybody really like confession?  In theory, I do honestly like it.  But in reality, it seems I only drag myself into a confessional once every few years.  And the main reason for that is that whole "all Catholics in good standing should go to confession at least once a year."  Ugh.  As I´ve mentioned before, if anyone wants to drive me crazy, keep telling me how I "have to" do something.

But, like I said, I like the sacrament, at least in theory.  For starters, it is a sacrament, which means we draw close to God and He draws close to us--what´s not to love about that?  Furthermore, I completely believe it can be a much more enjoyable experience than the chore we´ve turned it into.

When I was barely beginning to explore Catholicism, I had my first, albeit very informal, experience with confession.  I was fresh out of college, spending a year volunteering full-time in New Mexico with the Border Servant Corps.  As part of the program, we set aside one evening a week to intentionally spend with our fellow volunteers.  At one point in the year, we got into a regular habit of going around the group and honestly letting the group know how we were doing--emotionally, physically, spiritually, professionally, etc.

Looking back as I´m writing this, that sounds terribly tedious.  Eight people talking in-depth about four different aspects of what makes them tick every week?  We were a tight group, and I look back on those times as some of the most edifying of my life.

We were close enough that we could be absolutely honest with each other.  Frequently, it was an excellent opportunity to open up with struggles we were having as to ask our friends to pray for us.  Together, we celebrated mundane accomplishments like celebrating that we could finally run for 20 minutes at a stretch.  On the other extreme, it gave us an opportunity to reflect or admit openly if we were struggling with our faith or depression.  As we got in a habit of "checking in" every week, it became routine to follow up on each other, asking questions or encouraging each other through the week, as we really knew what was truly going on in each others´ lives.

Maybe it would help to take down the wall.

As I was beginning to explore Catholicism at the time, this experience gave me ample food for thought to consider the sacrament of reconciliation.  Given my religious background, I had a knee-slap reaction to confession--"well, of course I don´t have to confess my sins to a priest--I can go straight to God!"

While that certainly may be true, this weekly examination with my volunteer group opened my eyes to how beneficial it is to admit some things out loud, particularly to someone with an understanding ear.  And--let´s face it--it´s great to hear that we´re forgiven in the end.

Ideally, I believe this is how confession should be--like this experience my group had, of closeness and frequent contact, so we know what´s going on with others on a weekly (or daily) basis, so we know each others´ struggles and successes, celebrating and praying together.  Unfortunately, if a priest has hundreds of people in his parish, it is rather difficult for him to get to know all parishioners on that kind of level.

However, I´m pretty confident that most Catholics are much like me, and it wouldn´t take much effort to get to know our priests a bit better.  If we were better able to count our priests as our friends, time in the confessional would be less or a chore and more of an opportunity to simply sit back and be completely honest with a trusted friend.

And that would make confession the liberating experience that it´s meant to be.

Come on in!

**********************************************
Anyone itching for more reflections on confession?

Check out the other posts from the Catholic Women Bloggers Network--it´s an excellent, varied, and thought-provoking assortment, I promise!

Or, read chapter 28 in Matthew Kelly´s Resisting Happiness.  Even before this blog hop, that chapter recently got me off my butt and into a confessional--it´s that convicting!  Even better, the whole book is pretty good.


(If you´re like me, and read Matthew Kelly´s Rediscovering Catholicism and didn´t like it, give Resisting Happiness a try--it´s the book that I was hoping Rediscovering Catholicism would be!  I was pleasantly shocked that this was a genuinely good book.)

Standing in Solidarity (with a little luck)

I pass this two to four times a day.

Every day, I wonder how long my luck is going to hold out.  When is that pole going to slide under my car, flipping it over while spewing live electrical wires all over the street?

It´s been a month now.  So far, so good.

It´s March, which brings to mind St. Patrick´s Day and, consequently the luck of the Irish.  Now, to the best of my knowledge, none of my ancestors were Irish, but today I´m sure looking like I´m pretending I were.

Despite the red hair and ND outfit,
I´ve got NO Irish genes.  

But isn´t that more or less the point of a modern celebration of St. Patrick´s Day?  It´s a day where we all just pretend to be Irish.  I´m not sure how the Irish feel about that, but that´s how we do things in the US.  That, and it´s a good excuse to drink a Guinness.

Very similarly, Cinco de Mayo has turned into a popular celebration in the US.  In the US, people use the 5th of May to celebrate Mexican heritage--and that´s great.  Or, it´s just a good excuse to have some Coronas or a margarita.  But, like St. Patrick´s Day, it appears to be a day that we can all just pretend to be "Mexican" for a day.  Whatever that means.

I do get on my yearly soapbox, explaining that Cinco de Mayo isn´t widely celebrated in Mexico.  However the events of Cinco de Mayo had longer-lasting consequences for the US and, if we knew about them, it would then make perfect sense that we celebrate Cinco de Mayo more in the US than Mexico.  I´ve got more information on that topic here.

But I´m not exactly pushing that soapbox today.  This comparison between how St. Patrick´s Day and Cinco de Mayo are celebrated in the US is striking me pretty hard, particularly this year.  Around 150 years ago, when Irish people were immigrating to the US by the boatload, they were often discriminated against.  They had doors closed in their faces and were openly excluded from jobs, places to live, etc.

While anti-Mexican sentiment has been simmering under the surface of US culture for awhile now, it appears to be coming to a head with the current administration.  What am I proposing here?  I´m suggesting that yes, let´s celebrate Cinco de Mayo this year.  Let´s do it the same way we do St. Patrick´s Day, where everyone pretends to be Irish for a day.  This Cinco de Mayo, let´s all be Mexican for a day.

That doesn´t mean that we all go around wearing sombreros and drinking tequila.  What I´m proposing is that we stand in solidarity with those Mexicans (and other latinos) who live in the US.  We appreciate them for their contributions to our country.  (If you´re not sure what that would be, I´ve got a glaring example here, for those readers who skipped over that link earlier.)

Why do I claim that Mexicans (and other latinos) are being discriminated against?

Trump´s presidential campaign sounded pretty clear to me.  His remarks about Mexico have angered an entire nation.  It´s becoming routine, upon meeting new people here, one of the first questions we´re asked is, "do you like Trump?"  I shudder to think how they´d respond to someone who says they do.  And this new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office that trump wants to start sounds benign on the surface.  However, it hints at something larger.  My fear is that it will legitimize discrimination against latinos in the US.


But if that´s not evidence enough, consider:

• We have a system of for-profit detention centers where people are held for months, sometimes years, waiting for their immigration case to be process, often to ultimately be deported. 
• These for-profit detention centers require a MINIMUM number of people to be incarcerated in these centers.  Am I crazy, or should detention centers be run by the government (or at the very least, be non-profit).  Because who is making profits for these detention centers?  Right, the taxpayers.  And probably the people held in these detention centers.  
• Those held in these detention centers, not being US citizens, have no legal rights.  They have no right to representation like citizens or legal residents do.  This in another reason why they can be held for years, because in many cases no one is pushing to get cases heard, and the government has no plans to give these people due process--they just plan on deportation.  After they´ve met the detention centers´ minimum quotas, of course.        
• Entire families are locked up in these detention centers.  We´re incarcerating children.  This is not the kind of thing that makes me proud to be an American.  (Precisely the opposite.)

This Cinco de Mayo, let´s stand in solidarity with the Mexican and latino families down the street.  

That doesn´t mean eating a taco bowl.  Mexicans don´t actually eat those.  

That means contacting your representatives and senators, and speaking up for those neighbors who legally don´t have a voice in this country.  Whatever our stance on immigration, I think we can all agree that people should be treated humanely.  

Locking up non-violent offenders indefinitely is not humane.  Our country can do better.  

This Cinco de Mayo, let´s all be Mexican for a Day.



¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨

Need more reading about Detention Centers?

Check out:

• the ACLU
• Bring Pedro Home (through a facebook group, I became aware of this family.  At the time, the husband was detained (indefinitely, of course).  In the end, he was held for 19 months.  When his case finally went to trial, his US citizen wife was preparing to move to Guatemala, because it was very likely he was going to be deported anyway.  Fortunately, he was ultimately granted permanent residency, and (as he was before his detention) he has been contributing positively to his community ever since. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Father Dan´s "New Friend for 2017" Idea

Flashback to Sunday, January 1st, 2017:

I headed off to mass, all ready to start the new year on a bright, sunny Sunday in northern Indiana.

During the sermon, Father Dan mentioned that everybody in the parish was going to make a new friend for the year.  In the entryway to the church, there were baskets filled with strips of paper, listing a saint´s name and a few facts about that saint.  Whichever saint we picked would be our new friend for the year.

Or, as Father Dan put it, "I like to think that the saint picks us, instead of us picking the saint."

Admittedly, I was intrigued, and liked the idea of getting to research the life of some obscure, little-known saint.  A year or two ago, I had read a memoir, My Sisters, the Saints by Colleen Carroll Campbell.  Colleen paralleled trying times in her faith journey with the life stories of three saints whose examples had helped her in those moments.

All ready to meet my new "friend", someone who I expected to never have heard of before, I plunged my hand into one of those paper-filled baskets after mass.  Unfolding the paper, I read . . .

Our Lady of Guadalupe.

You´ve got to be kidding me.

Out of all the thousands and thousands of names I could have picked, I´m quite confident that I know Guadalupe better than any other.

However, thanks to growing up Protestant, I´ve got a rather strained relationship with Mary, regardless which other name may be applied to her (Guadalupe, Fatima, Lourdes, etc).  Yes, I get the whole "she´s your spiritual mother" deal.  But I´ve been happy to keep her at arm´s length.  And I was absolutely sure she was OK with that, too.

Up until now.

I´m not quite sure what to do with this.  I feel like I´ve got Guadalupe sitting in my lap, waiting for me to do something with her.  But what?

I´ve asked my husband, what the deal with Guadalupe is, and he just responds that he likes having a mother to talk with.  Unfortunately for me for that argument, I was raised in a fairly liberal church.  One day in fourth-grade Sunday school, the pastor was visiting our class, and we must have had something like "Pick Pastor Ron´s Brain" Day.  One of the girls asked him if we could refer to God as  a She.

This was one of the more fundamental moments of my faith formation.  Without betting an eye, Pastor Ron said, "sure."  So, for the rest of that year, I took great delight in shocking my more conservative friends by regularly referring to God as She.

I can´t explain how grateful I am for that answer.  But it also means that I have no need to pray to Mary, taking refuge in a mother-figure, as God Herself is that Mother figure for me.  Let´s face it--no matter one´s opinion of God, for those of us willing to admit that God exists, I´m sure we can all agree that (S)He is too big to get tripped up by gender labels.

I pray the rosary occasionally, and I enjoy it.  But it seems like a waste of time (if not downright idolatrous) to pray to Mary, instead of going directly to God.

I realize I sound rather defensive.  That´s really not my intention!  At this point for me, pulling that name out of that basket was like opening a door.  It feels like I´m opening an investigation into Mary and her manifestations in order to find out what impact she may have on my life.  This is where I need you, dear reader.  For those of you out there, who are more into Mary than I currently am, please explain this to me!  (If you don´t count yourself among that group, feel free to tune out here.)

I´m not asking this to criticize or judge anyone else´s faith.  I genuinely want to know.  How do you relate to Mary?  What does she mean to you?  Your story is your story and whatever your story is, it´s important.  I love learning from others.  So please, share your story with me!  For those not comfortable posting in the comment section, (or if you´ve got more to say than fits in a comment) write me at jilldouglas01@hotmail.com.

Thanks!

I Need Help!

I love to help people.  I suppose, deep down inside, it makes me feel needed, and who doesn´t like to feel needed?

However, the reverse of this is a bit more difficult.  I don´t know if it´s our "I-can-do-it-all" culture, or the fact that we cherish our independence above all else.  But accepting help, or admitting that I need help, is often really hard.

When I moved to Saltillo eight years ago, I was in desperate need of friends.  We don´t have family near, so anyone I could carry on an adult conversation with was a shining ray of light for me.  Slowly, but surely, I met people.

Now that I know a number of people, I´ve noticed that it´s easy to fall into superficial relationships.  We can talk about living in Mexico, and our kids play together, and that´s all well and good.  But I want more.  I´ve got a number of very polite friendships.

Sometimes, though, we all need that friend that we know we can call at any time of day or night.  That friend who, when we need someone to do us a huge favor, they don´t bat an eye.

Fortunately, I have two fairly recent examples:  three years ago we adopted a dog.  But we like to leave town on weekends, sometimes for full weeks at a time.  Nuts.  I should have thought about that before taking in the dog.  Before skipping town one time, I asked a friend who I had known for a few months if she minded watching my dog for a few days.  (I also knew she had a massive yard--very hard to find near cities in Mexico). Having four dogs of her own, she didn´t bat an eye--and even refused payment when I offered.

Man, it´s hard to be in someone´s debt.  But sometimes it´s necessary!

So a year or so later when she wanted to start working (only 4 hours a week), she told me how she really wanted to go back to work, but didn´t know what to do with her boys.  Since I was already at home every day with Sam, I didn´t think twice about it and offered to watch them.

After that, we were in and out of each other´s houses just about every other day.  While the two extra boys for a few hours kept me jumping, it was also so very satisfying.  Sharing the mundane details of daily life was a type of friendship that I hadn´t had in awhile.  And it would never have happened if either of us weren´t open to accepting help from the other.

Example Two:  Right after Sam was born, most of my neighbors told me, "let me know if you need anything!"  Since my mother-in-law came to help, and Mario´s cousin was still living with us, we really didn´t have a need to take them up on it--until the day that we went to file Sam´s birth certificate.

In Mexico, parents need to provide two witnesses for a child´s birth certificate.  Our plan, of course, was to bring Mario´s mom and cousin.  However, the day we went, Clara and Joey were both sick.  As Mario had taken the day off of work, he was ready to plow ahead.  If the kids were sick, he thought, "let´s just bring them with us!"  I made a few phone calls, and within twenty minutes, one of my beautiful neighbors had dropped everything and was ready to go with us, so Mario´s mom could stay and take care of the sick kids.

With both examples, I can´t explain how much I appreciate having these women in my life, knowing that if I need them, they´re available.  There are other people who are certainly on this list, too, but those examples have stuck out in my memory.

While I enjoy showing love to other people by helping them out, these examples are a great reminder that being open to accepting someone´s help is another way of accepting their love.  Sometimes it´s hard to love others, but in our culture that celebrates individualism, letting other people into our lives to love us is often harder.

When we let others in, we admit that we can´t do it all.
When we let others in, we admit that we need help.
When we let others in, we are vulnerable.

When we let others in, real relationships can form.

It´s hard, but it´s so worth it!

An InLinkz Link-up

Decisions, decisions . . .

I´ve got a number of ideas floating around my head.  However, I don´t have a ton of time.  And the idea that takes up the most space in my head would also take up . . . well, honestly more time than I have to give.

Or do I?


But beyond this BIG IDEA (in the likely event that I decide to postpone it or chuck it out the window), I´ve got a bazillion smaller projects that I´d like to try:

I´ve finally dominated this book.
It´s time to learn to use verbs!

Learn German--Mario had to learn German years ago, and really enjoyed it.  However, it´s been years since he´s used it.  No--I take that back.  He yells at the dog in German.  Since my kids have English and Spanish down, it´s time for them to take on another language.  And wouldn´t it be so simple to do if we could speak German at home?

That means that I need some German lessons.  And I´ve got a great contact for that.  Now I just need to get that ball rolling!

Take flute lessons--since joining the choir, it´s floored me how much I´ve missed making music.  Over the last year, I´ve been playing my flute more and more, and it´s increasingly clear that my flute abilities hit a plateau about twenty years ago and I´m not going to get any better without professional help.  It´s never too late to decide that I DO want to get better at it.

Oh, my--it really solidifies my commitment to put that statement out there like that.  Yikes!

Do a school survey for SaltilloExpats:  I´ve had this idea in my head for over a year.  In fact, I went to the American School to get information on it, with the intention of interviewing at least three other schools in town, so give potential relocators a better idea of their school options here in Saltillo.  But I never got past that first interview.  

So, this year, I´m going to visit more schools, and--more importantly--interview parents and students about their experiences in various schools around town.  In the end, I want this to be a huge project (and translated into Spanish for those moving here from other cities in Mexico), and eventually include every school in town.    

For years, I´ve been attending a Bible study at a nondenominational church (in English) across town.  It´s still the highlight of my week.  But, as I´m making more friends on my side of town, and those friends attend my neighborhood parish, I´d really like to start a mom´s group at my neighborhood church--either on weekday mornings or on Saturdays while the kids are in catechism.  I would love to get to know better the women who I see on a daily basis.  If we were to pray together, study the Bible together, that would be really meaningful, and I would really like to have more meaningful relationships with these women.  I´ll be running the idea past a few of them this month!  

With paying for German classes and flute lessons, it would behoove me to write a few articles or stories for magazines that might actually pay me.  In the past, I´ve sent out 2 or 3 articles to one magazine each.  I knew then I should have given it a better shot.  This year might be the year to do it!

Both of my older children will be in elementary school this fall, so I´ll have an additional two hours every day . . . oh, the possibilities are endless!  Or, they seem that way at this point.    

Oh, and gee--I could clean my house more, excercize, and make healthy meals.  

Nah . . . 

For more of South of the Border resolutions and goals, be sure to visit the following blogs...

http://www.inlinkz.com/new/view.php?id=688884" title="click to view in an external page.">An InLinkz Link-up

Photo Challenge Fail

I had the best of intentions.

And I loved doing the photo-scavenger-hunt-through-December-thing.

But the third week of Advent got the better of me.

However, I DID get one photo that week!  Never mind that it wasn´t on the list for the photo challenge.

My week got sidelined by the Nutcracker.  This year marked the 30th anniversary of the first time I saw the Nutcracker.  I´ve seen it just about every year since.  

But this was the first time I got to be in it.  

OK, maybe "be in it" is a bit of an overstatement.  This Nutcracker had live accompaniment from the state orchestra, and I sing with their choir, whenever they need a choir.  

In the Snowflake Scene, they needed a choir!  Yee-haw!

So this was my view: 

Photo courtesy of the Orquesta Filarmónica del Desierto

In a way, this was a bit of a dream come true for me, so these photos appropriately embody JOY, for the third week of Advent.

For the fourth week of Advent, I was so behind in making cookies, buying presents, and packing to go see my family, PLUS the last week of school and all those Christmas parties, that the photo challenge was officially dropped.  

So, until next year, Advent Photo Challenge!  (At least, until Nutcracker Week.)

Until then, bring it on, 2017!