A Visit from Canadian Friends

We are enjoying a visit from two fantastic friends.  What a blessing it is to share meals together,  laugh together, talk at length, and just be in eachother's presence! 

Guanacaste Tree

This is a guanacaste tree, a local source of lumber.  It produces a beautiful dark redish brown wood which is resistant to water and termites.  Our closet doors are made of this wood, and at El Faro most of the desks, bookshelves, and tables are made from it.

This is the remains of a felled tree at a brother's ranch.  His carpenter cuts off chunks as needed.

This is the carpenter's workshop.

Here are slabs of wood waiting to be turned into beautiful furniture.

This is the highchair that he is making for our favourite local cafe.

Japanese Bound Books are Done!

One by one the older girls at El Faro have made their own Japanese bound books.  The books turned out wonderful and you can see by their smiles that they are proud of their work.

And I am proud of their work too!

A Very Canadian Moment

The other evening I acted like a true Canadian in Arriaga.  

First, a primer in Mexican advertising:  there are no classifieds, no Penny Savers, and no fliers delivered to your door.  Instead, you pay someone who has a speaker on their car to drive around town announcing your amazing iguana meat for sale, or your wonderful Tlyudas from Oaxaca, or the date and time of your spouse's funeral.  If you live in a really small town, they don't bother driving around, they just put a speaker up on a pole and make announcements all day long(often 4 times, once in each direction).  The announcers don't read in boring monotone voices, but dramatize, like sport's announcers.

Until recently I've thought of this as an unusual and loud but a reasonable solution for advertising in this society.  That was until I experienced a stationary announcement . . .  a single announcement . . .  repeatedly . .  loudly . . . with speakers directed at my house . . . at 9 pm . . .  when my children were suppose to go to sleep . . . for more than 20 minutes.  My Canadian ways of thinking began to surface.  "This is crazy!"  "How can they be allowed to do this?"  "In Canada we would call the police for disturbing the peace!"  After fuming to myself, I decided I would take action and tell them to turn it down, as we had already heard their announcement to remember it till we die and maybe even later.

The problem with my plan was that I don't know how to politely (or rudely) tell someone to turn it down in Spanish.  So I asked my friend who works in the cafe next door about my problem.  I asked her if it was permitted to leave the announcements pouring on a few unfortunate houses.  Her sympathetic reply with a smile was, "In Mexico, yes."  But, being a good friend, she went and asked them to turn it down.  The dial was turned down a millimeter and I returned home to marvel at the differences between life in Mexico and Canada.  Eventually they turned it off or left to bother someone else. 

Progress on the Bunkhouse

The bunkhouse is a building on the ranch which is intended to host work teams.  There will be ample room for a team to stay while working on the ranch.  Currently work teams stay in a hotel in town and travel to and from the ranch each day.  When we first visited the ranch a year ago, it looked like this:

It had been looking like this for a few years, and aside from some walls build a year or two ago, not much has changed until last month. 

Now, it is beginning to have walls and soon it will have a roof too!

The above grassy area will be a covered tiled porch where hammocks will be hung.  Ahhhh, lovely siestas after a morning of good work!

Buildings are constructed very differently here than in Canada.  First a wall is built with bricks.  Gaps are left between the sections of the wall.  These spaces are closed in on both sides with wooden panels and cement is poured into the gaps.  After the panels are removed you have your "framing".  Sam hopes to add some blog entrys soon about Mexican construction, for those interested.

For any really keen construction minded persons, the bunk-house is a combination of international building styles. It was started by a team from the US, the leader's experience was in building high rises!  It will be finished by Mexican bricklayers, welders and roofers, and plumbed and wired by Canadians, Americans and . . .?



Turtle from Tlyuda Lady

These are tlyudas, a Oaxacan food.  Since we live just a few minutes from the Chiapas/Oaxaca state boarder, we a blessed to have tlyudas available in Arriaga.  They are so yummy!  They are dinner-plate-sized corn tortillas filled with refried beans, Oaxacain cheese, cabbage, and meat, grilled over a charcoal fire.  Of course there are many variations of tlyudas, but this what is inside "tlyuda lady's" tlyudas.  She is from Oaxaca and comes to Arriaga each weekend to sell tlyudas.  She opens up the gates to her driveway and sets up shop in her courtyard, working from the tiny kitchen.  (Many people will set up small food stands this way to earn extra money.) Once she has made enough money for the weekend, she closes up shop and goes back to Oaxaca.  Too bad for you if you don't come the first night, and she is already gone.

Since we like her's best of all the tlyudas we have tried, her's are "authentic" in our minds.  Each weekend we make it our "duty" to have one meal of tlyudas.  Tlyuda lady keeps track of us.  She knows how many we like to eat and she notices when we don't show up. We know this because she comments to other Gringos about our habits.

Well, a week ago she gave us a turtle along with our tlyudas.  Sort of a treat-of-the-week to go along with our meal, I guess.

I don't know much about turtles, much less Mexican turtles. I had to Google how to take care of him.  Funny thing is he doesn't like to eat what I am suppose to feed him.  He only seems to like the meat found inside tlyudas.  The neat thing about our turtle is the bottom plate of its shell has two hinges.  It can pull up the back and front thirds, completely closing itself inside. 

The kids named the turtle Papaya and a friend has agreed to take over our pet when we leave.  She has a lovely backyard full of plants and I'm sure Papaya won't miss us - that is unless our friend doesn't feed him "authentic" tlyudas.

Mexican Colours

Update for August

Hola Everyone,

Wow, August disappeared quickly! Of course, it was very busy month for us, which may explain its rapid disappearance.

The month began with a church Youth retreat. Sam was there for most of the retreat and I joined for one morning to share a message along side Sam. We spoke about God's calling on our life, basically how we ended up in Mexico. Our encouragement to the youth was to not worry about what God is doing in other people's lives, but to trust His specific plan and timing for their own lives. Sam was blessed by his time spent with the youth as they warmly welcomed him.

   An early morning hike to the top of a "mountain" at the Youth Retreat.

A week after the retreat, our children had the chicken pox. First one, then the next, and finally the last one. It was tiring week cooped up in the house, though it was a productive week for me because I completed a number of unfinished projects.

With the chicken pox healed up we were ready to have some guests. Who better to have over than Opa and Oma?! Sam's parents came for two weeks to visit and work. Sam's dad helped at the ranch building rabbit cages while Sam's mom hung out with the kids and visited at the orphanage.  They also brought a wheelchair for Kimberly which was generously donated by "Bibles For Missions" in Grimsby.  It is a little heavy, but extremely durable and well made for Mexican use.

  Here is Kimberley and Oma with the new wheelchair.

At the end of their visit, we were able to take a short vacation with them in the state of Oaxaca. While traveling there was an adventure (read about it here), our time there was a real treat.

  We spent almost all our time in the pool!

We weren't the only ones with visitors this past month. A weekend conference was held at the church by Living Waters, teaching the people how to share the gospel through stories with people who are unable to read. This is an important initiative in a place where many people are illiterate. A work team also came from California for a week of painting in the church and in the orphanage. Typically the work teams are only English speaking, but this team way completely fluent in Spanish, which helped them to build relationships with the children.

School began again in August, but with a big change for the orphanage. Previously a number of the children attended a private school, while some of the children had school at the orphanage. This year all the children are being taught at the orphanage. The children are enrolled in a program called A.C.E. With its specific curriculum for each learner, it is a good fit for the education needs of the orphanage and meets government requirements.

It continues to be rainy season here. Jude has been asking lately when it will end. All of us have been wondering that. Earlier this year the city fixed a drainage problem just down the road from the orphanage. Unfortunately their solution has lead to flooding inside the orphanage during heavy downpours. A short term solution has been found, but a long term solution is needed, a solution which only the cleverest mind could find given the mysterious nature of plumbing here.

In just six weeks we will be saying farewell to everyone here and returning to Canada. Earlier we had prayed that we would remain focused on our work here and not check out mentally nor emotionally too early. It looks like our full calendar will help keep us focused here and also help the time pass quickly. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement as we finish our work in Arriaga.

Love Sam, Wendy, Hannah, Jude, Jeremiah and Baby Dieleman

Prayer Items:

• Relief from on-going, bothersome car troubles and plumbing difficulties for the orphanage.
• Thanksgiving for the great response to the coverage about the El Faro on Christian World News.
• Thanks that the block machine arrived and the blockhouse is nearly completed.
• Wisdom for decisions concerning baby Rebecca's leg.
• A Mexican worker for the babies is still needed.
• Praise God for an education program which suits the needs of the children well.
• God's directions in short and long terms plans for our family.

Hannah's Ninth Birthday Party

After one month of delays, Hannah had her ninth birthday party!  That was one month of being questioned by the guests, "Hermana, is it today?!  When, Hermana?"  The one who asked the most, was Maylyn.  She has spent most of her life in orphanages and so this was her very first birthday party to attend.  It was an honour to have her as a guest.  Hannah was okay with having it delayed so long because her grandparents were able to be a part of the event.  Oma even hid the thimble in her hair for the Find-the-thimble game, to everyone's amusement!

Of course there was a pinata and this was the fated blow by Carmita.

It was a fun time and a great memory.

10th Anniversary Oaxaca Style

If you had asked me 10 years ago, what I would be doing on my wedding anniversary, I would not have guessed correctly.  Sam's parents were here for a visit and we booked a few days of vacation in a hotel in Oaxaca with them.  We left early on the day of our anniversary, expecting to arrive at the hotel in the afternoon, enjoy some time at the pool, and have a lovely dinner together in the evening.

Well, less than an hour into the drive, we came upon some backed up traffic.  The kids and I got out to stretch our legs.  We walked to the front to see what was the problem.  There were two transport trucks across the road and some people standing around with machetes and sticks.  They were pleasant and greeted us.  Hmmm, nothing looked serious.  Oh, the naive Canadians that we are!

It was a protest.  That was all we knew.  We didn't know who was protesting, why they were protesting, or how long they would protest.  All we could do was wait. 

We sat there for 7.5 hours while the traffic built up around and behind us.  No one passed through except those on motorcycles, horses, and foot.  We checked and double checked the map but, there was no other road around.  Thankfully we had pulled under a tree for shade and we had plenty of food along for the drive.  The kids played at the side of the road and made friends with those around us. 

Often we struggle to keep our patience when we are tired and grumpy at the end of the day.   So often we fail and snap at our children or are overly severe.  So often I pray that we will be a better example to them of grace and patience.  Well, that day we were rich with opportunities to practice!  Answering again and again, "Why would the mean people do this to us?"  Consoling the child who cries, "But, it's not fair!"  Stating repeatedly, "No, we don't know why they are blocking the road."  "No, we can't just take another road."  "No, we don't know when we can go."  Sam and I were proud of our children and how they coped with the day, and perhaps a bit amazed at ourselves too.

Driving past 5 km of backed up traffic.

When we finally got going, we were so thankful and joyful!  The delight of moving forward towards our destination!  We still had a long drive ahead and got to the hotel at 11:30 pm.  No, I would not have guessed this was how our 10th anniversary would be spent. 

Kimberley's got new wheels!

Sam's parents were able to pick up a used wheel chair in Ontario to bring along for Kimberley.  Although, used, this wheelchair comes with deluxe features and Kimberley is very happy with her new wheels.

(Kimberley is recovering from the chicken pox.)