If it were up to me, I would officially ban Aaron from any more business travel… we are suffering too much… we are not superstitious, I swear, but we are starting to wonder about the possible correlation between Aaron’s work travel and the universe that seems to crash down around us whenever he is away!  🙂   A disproportionate number of significant “events” seem to occur when he is working abroad…

Today we lived our own version of “Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”… Let’s see, actually these past two weeks have been one hell of a ride. Tortuga died sometime early Wednesday morning… I wasn’t one hundred percent sure at first, as he typically slept a lot but usually could be roused… I had no luck waking him this time and I just knew… I worried all day about telling the kids… Mansell’s habit the past three weeks is to go say hello and see how he is doing as soon as he walks in after school… I watched him from the kitchen approach the aquarium… I held my breath… I saw his puzzled face, his brow furrow as he watched for movement… he looked up and around, searching for someone to pose his “Is Tortuga okay?” question to. That was my cue to move in and begin the tough conversation. He refused to believe it, then broke down. He blamed himself for not having done more – but I stopped him from “going there” – I reminded him about Tortuga’s unfortunate start in life, being “cared for” by fellow classmates who did not know how to properly care for a turtle. He was in cold, dirty water, where he likely developed a respiratory disease, and was not fed for long stretches at a time. He had no heat source, and being an amphibian, cannot regulate his own body temp and needs the heat to do so. I do not seek to blame these kids, only to identify that they were ignorant to the needs of a turtle, which compromised his health. I wrote a letter to the Biology teacher:

“Dear Miss Biology,

Mansell just loved the biology project. Such great learning about the interconnectedness of living things in an ecosystem.

When Mansell’s classmates could not keep the little turtle they had purchased for their project, we agreed to care for it. Please know that throughout the project Mansell would come home and express his worries that the turtle was not being cared for properly; of most concern was the assertion that the group members were not feeding it, but also that it was in dirty water and had no heat source. When Mansell asked me if we could care for it, I did not hesitate, knowing his concerns about it’s care.  We insisted that he do the research to ensure the turtle was set up to thrive. We named the turtle “Tortuga” and he had eye infections when he arrived that we worked to clear up. He was in filthy water when he arrived. Mansell did a lot of reading, consulted with veterinarians and visited a number of pet stores to research and collect the required and necessary items to create a good environment for Tortuga to live in. He was very much cared about by everyone in our family.  Unfortunately not long after he came to live with us, he passed away. He struggled with infections in his eyes and lungs.

I wonder if it would be possible to require your students in future to spend some time researching the animal they want to include in their ecosystem and be sure they can commit to the care of the animal they choose. Perhaps fish, which are generally easy to care for, might be the best choice of animal for this project? Red-eared slider turtles should not be sold before their shells are 4 inches in length… Tortuga was very tiny, with a shell of only about 3 inches long.  They are actually illegal to sell in Mexico now.  I’m not sure if the students in the group that chose a turtle would have done so if they understood the unusual and specific care requirements of this type of turtle.

Thank you for your dedication to education. Mansell always loves attending your classes!”

It was such a sad time. For 36 hours that little turtle sat on his turtle-dock, in the sunshine, so Mansell could have time to be completely sure he was dead. I finally had to insist that we do something with him… the kids thought it would be nice to bury him under the little palm we have growing in the far corner of our yard. I suggested that Mansell fold a little origami box to put him in, but he decided an origami boat would be more fitting. The kids amazed me with their sensitive understanding of death traditions – they put some turtle food, a Canadian dime and 5 Mexican pesos in the boat with Tortuga. Mansell was insisting that this folded piece of paper that was springing up and not lying flat be on the bottom of the boat for Tortuga, “to provide a soft spot” he said. As he’s struggling to make it work I was very close to trying to reason with him that it was too big for the boat and would not allow Tortuga to sit flat, when it occurred to me that that paper was not a blank piece of folded paper for padding…. “you wrote him a note?” I asked. “Yes.” The paper stayed and we edited some of the tissue we had wrapped him in. I never saw what he wrote, but I assured him again that this was not his fault and that he did everything he could to help him. We took the large river rocks that Marta, our Spanish tutor, gave Mansell for Tortuga and placed them to mark where he lies under the palm tree.

This same day, our water stopped. First the pressure started to go, then faucets ran dry. And so began a four day fight to have water restored to our house. We were boiling water to wash ourselves and our dishes. The day before we were preparing for our cooking class (see new Mexican Food page, click here) with Paulina, when we heard this extremely loud hissing sound – it started very suddenly and was so loud, even in the house. I thought something inside had burst, so raced around the house to check. Finding nothing I opened the front door to investigate, and saw a bunch of the labourers who are working on building a new house on the lot next to us, scrambling and running and gathering around a dug hole right at the edge of our driveway…interestingly, that is where the water connects to our house… with the water gone, I started to piece this puzzle together and I determined that it is likely that when these contractors were hooking up water to the new house, and they tried to stop the break in the line, they somehow cut off our supply. The cistern where water collects to be pumped up through the house was empty by the time I noticed the low pressure and then zero water… I guess we chewed through what was stored during the day. It was in the evening that I noticed the pump continuously running… I emailed the landlord to let him know. I phoned the landlord, no response. By midnight, I knew I should try to figure out how to turn the pump off,  a) because it was so loud no one could sleep and b) because I worried it would burn itself out running dry like that – wasn’t sure if it could also get so hot and become a fire hazard… so I’m out in the dark (can’t figure out which switch turns the light on in the driveway!!) trying to find the switch that turns this noisy pump off. Rosie wouldn’t even come out with me! Instant relief when I turned that switch to off!  I’m sure the neighbours were thrilled too – was just such an awful loud noise (I suspect the pump was on it’s last leg by then!)  The next morning I called Aaron’s assistant to ask that she call the administration of our community to get someone out to check the line; she’s Mexican and speaks Spanish and has been very helpful to call on our behalf to various services.  The “technician” (by the way, we suspect that anyone can show up at your door with a backpack full of tools and declare themselves “experts”) was not terribly helpful, saying that he “fixed” the problem by fixing the meter?!… hmmm…having been a hands-on, DIY homeowner in my recent past, I know that “fixing” a water meter will not make water flow!!! Wow!! So I’m at square one again. I continue to try to get a hold of the landlord without success. Aaron’s assistant has called back to the administration of our community to report that there is still no water at our house. It is now escalated to a municipal issue and someone from “city hall” has been dispatched to look at it, due to arrive at 4:00pm. We are later told that they’ve been held up at another job, so won’t be coming til 9:30 am the next day…funny thing, when I got off the phone and reported to the kids this change in time, Caleigh rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, right.  They won’t come, you know.”  She called it, as at 11:00 am the next day still no one had showed, and through text we were informed that they won’t be able to make it until 2:00 pm… GRRRRRR… in the meantime, we are trying to find our own plumber to come and look at it, and finally we hear from the landlord… three days after I reported no water… within 2 hours he has contractors out to the house and over two days they are able to troubleshoot and fix it. Wow! We had our final cooking class with no water, which was a bit of a challenge – of course we went through a lot of drinking water to do our cleaning. Paulina, having grown up in Mexico said that it is pretty common in MX City to have issues with water flow – she remembers as a kid when the water went out they didn’t have to go to school because no one could wash! Incredible! And by the way, the city hall “experts” never did show… I am amazed that anything at all gets accomplished here!!

Speaking of which, we are now in an emergency situation with our immigration status… the documents we’ve been working on getting signed, stamped, copied, re-signed, notarized, legalized, authorized, “one more” signature required and finally validated to prove our identity as Canadian citizens and to apply for temporary residency were submitted some time ago and left in the hands of the company HR department to complete the application process here in MX. (For the record, I’ve been working on completing our part, as HR requested and outlined, since November…) The same day the water stopped and we buried the turtle we received a message stating that we had missed a bunch of steps and that because of our oversights the FM3 cards (temporary residency visa) would not be ready in time for us to travel back to Canada. WHAT?! Honestly, it seems that no one is able to see the whole picture or at least to communicate all the pieces of the puzzle that need to be fit together to make anything happen. How is this our fault?! So now, I’m scrambling to get photos done and sign forms that are being couriered back and forth between our place and the company and the company lawyer is now involved in trying to get a special letter of permission ready so we can leave the country and eventually get back in… I can’t even make this stuff up!?! I’m sure those forms just sat on a desk… and we are in “reaction-mode” again… what makes me the craziest is that we have been sure to check in periodically to ensure that everything is moving forward as planned, because we have learned that you cannot ever assume anything… and over and over we are told all is fine…

On the way to bed last night, heading up the stairs, Caleigh screams. Not very far up the wall is a scorpion, clinging to the textured stucco surface. Awesome… I’m having my own silent freak out because the night before Aaron left for France, I found one in the basement – a big one – and I made Aaron kill it – it was his opportunity to partake in the scorpion fun!  I never did tell the kids about that one. We were laughing about the “good” timing of that nasty bug showing itself before he left… Aaron shuddered at the thought of another one showing up after he left, like the last time he travelled, for me to deal with… so finding another one in the house less than a week after this one, has me a bit worried. Fired off another message to the landlord asking for extermination treatment to the house… was a long night as the kids couldn’t relax to sleep. We know a lot about scorpions now and they really aren’t “supposed to” climb, so finding one on the wall was very concerning for the kids… I assured them that it is the texture of the wall that was helping it achieve that unlikely climb… we toured around the house identifying the only walls with texture and noting that the walls near everyone’s beds were smooth… man! The hoops we jump through… and the acting we do as parents – “of course there is nothing to worry about, I’m not worried about this… don’t you think if I was really concerned I would be freaking out more….?”

One more day til Aaron gets home… I’m holding my breath and hoping the roof doesn’t cave in before then…