One of the great lacks of Puebla is green space–parks. There are some decent ones, and we love them, but coming from very green areas (WA & PA) we sometimes miss wide swathes of green grass and lots of trees rustling in the wind. Yesterday we found a neat little park by the river. It’s […]

How well do you know about Mexico? Here’s a quiz from the Christian Science Monitor. It’s actually got some challenging questions. We sleep-walked through the first 10, then got cocky and missed a few, so…DON’T get cocky! CSM Quiz. Good luck! How’d you do? Update: Here’s another one…

Wednesday was the 206th anniversary of Benito Juárez’s birthday. Benito Juárez is probably the most significant political figure in Mexico’s history. I don’t need to get into a biography here (here’s Wikipedia’s or About’s). Basically he was a Zapotec Indian orphan who rose out of poverty to become the leader of the reformist movement in […]

About noon today we were in the office (aka Starbucks) when the building started to shake, just a little at first then more and more, back and forth. Everyone’s reaction was the same: dawning realization, then looking around to see if anyone else felt it, then looking at each other with the thought, “What do […]

December 22 our neighbors up the street did a traditional Mexican Christmas party, called a Posada, with a Christmas play, called a Pastorela. We went along and enjoyed getting to know them, and the performance. It’s taken this long to put the videos together and post them. It’s an interesting cultural experience. I put little […]

One of the big issues in Mexican education is reading, or lack thereof. Mexicans just don’t read. A common figure thrown around is that the average Mexican reads 2 books a year vs. 6 for the average American. No idea if that’s true or where is comes from, but it passes the sniff test–although our […]

Today is December 12th. In Mexico that means it’s the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. 480 years ago today, so the story goes, an indigenous peasant named, Juan Diego, was on a hill outside (today’s) Mexico City when a Virgin appeared to him and told him to build a church there. His skeptical bishop […]

Here’s an article by the Economist magazine on drivers’ licenses in Mexico. It’s so true. I just got a license here, because I couldn’t renew online in Washington. It cost me $600 for three years (quite a bit more expensive than in WA), and took about an hour to go with my documents, take an […]

Today we went to the Instituto Nacional de Migración for the second of (hopefully) three stages for our FM-3 visa. The FM-3 is the visa that allows us to live and work in Mexico as missionaries. I confess that government forms and paperwork leave me knock-kneed and nervous. We’ve always just gone with a lawyer […]

Well, the touring part of our trip is over. We’ve driven just over 3,000 miles, seen 5 national parks, camped out four nights, experienced temperatures from 100 degrees down to about 35. Now we’re with Tim’s Uncle Larry & Aunt Jayme in Dallas this morning, then driving 120 miles south to Temple for a few […]