Learning to Live in Mexico

In my mid-twenties I spent almost a year living in Mexico. It was the first time I'd moved away from home. For that reason, Mexico will always have a piece of my heart.

I was not in tourist Mexico, but rather lived in a small town that most people wouldn't have heard of. As someone who spoke no Spanish at the time, it was a leap. I had to learn how to do everything ... grocery shop, have water and gas delivered, find a doctor, mail a letter from the post office, drive a car and pay my cell phone bill. These sound like trivial things. They are not. It's like being put in a blender. Nothing is intuitive. There were occasional tears, and several triumphs, in those initial months.

After a few weeks it was pretty clear that I needed a car to get around. I bought a teeny, tiny used VW, luckily from a Spanish speaker who agreed to go with me to transfer the papers.

She picked me up and we drove down to the local office. There was a line up outside the building and we waited for our turn in the hot sun. As we finally took shelter inside I was mesmerized by a sea of women working frantically on manual typewriters (this was in the late 90s). The clicking was tremendous. We worked our way to the front of the line and presented our paperwork with confidence. After much paper flipping we were told that we needed photocopies of the documents and were sent back out in the street in search of a copier.

We set out to roam the streets around the market amongst kid's toys, pinatas, underwear and fresh produce looking for a copy shop. We finally found a photocopier in the back of a small shop. This was not his first rodeo. He knew he had a captive audience.

With copies in tow we filed into the back of the line, and waited all over again. As we approached the front, I could feel victory. Papers were flipped back and forth. Then we were told to go to a sister office across town for further processing. Why?

We drove across town, waited in another line, were kicked back out for more photocopies and waited in line again. There was vigourous stamping. Then we were told to go back to the downtown location. What was happening?

At the front of the line in the downtown location, we were finally brought into the back and told to wait. The tires were kicked and the trunk was inspected. We passed. Finally we were called over to a desk where a man reviewed the paperwork. I nodded, pretending I knew what he was saying. I thanked him profusely and skipped away.

As I stepped out into the midday sun hours into this journey I felt proud as we walked back to my new car.

Upon review of the documents I noted with dismay that they didn't use my last name. In Latin America people have two last names. The final last name is your Mother's maiden name, and the second last name is your Father's name. They dropped the final last name for the paperwork. I happen to have two middle names and they used my second middle name as my last name. Oh to be defeated!

a babe in the woods ... throwback to the 90s