Last Wednesday I left school with a few other teachers and
Maribel from HR to pick up my working Visa.
I had heard from other teachers that you have to wait for hours before,
but I was just excited not to have to teach my last class of the day. The way the immigration office works here in
Queretaro is that they open the doors for a few hours in the late morning/early
afternoon for people to come line up for service. You’re given a number and then you wait until
they call you up—similar to the DMV in the States. If you do not show up at the open doors
during those hours, you miss out and have to come back later. My group arrived around 12:45 and we were the
last group they admitted. To pass the
two hours until my number was called, I read my Kindle, purposely ignoring the
papers waiting to be graded in my bag. I
figured if I had to wait then my papers did too :)! In the midst of my reading I was able to
converse with some of the other teachers about school, Spanish lessons, and the
books we were reading. When my number
was called, I had the pleasure of working with a very upbeat employee which
surprised me. I signed a bunch of
papers, gave my thumbprints, and then had to write my name in their book
because for some reason it was not written in there. The guy smiled and told me I didn’t
exist. I chuckled while mouthing urgent
prayers to God that this wouldn’t lead to anything serious. It turned out not to be a big deal, and a
moment later I was handed my freshly laminated FM3 card. While I was still enjoying the warmth of my
legality, Maribel told me she had to take it to finish my paperwork and
promised to give it back next week.
Friday after school I went with a couple of girls to
purchase fabric for my costume. I’ve
decided to dress as a ham hock like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. No, I
do not expect many teachers or students to understand my costume, but I will
enjoy the literary nature of it! I still
need to go to Home Depot to get some chicken-wire or something for the internal
structure. I hope it will turn out how
I’m envisioning it and not look like a piece of poop…
Saturday morning I met some girls at 10am to drive to
Tequisquiapan to visit a winery called Freixenet. I’m not a big wine fan, but I wanted to
socialize and see more of Mexico. When
we arrived, we split a bottle of sparkling wine and nibbled some of the Spanish
cuisine while we waited for the rest of our group to join us. The perfect music match for wine is of
course, Jazz. What I found interesting
is that the “Jazz” music they played at Freixenet was pop music that was
“jazzed” up. Some of the songs were ok,
but the Coldplay song was a little much for me. After wine we participated in a tour of the
winery which was all in Spanish. Kerrie
offered to translate, but Melanie and I were having way to much fun creating
out own tour dialogue. Some of the finer
points included the room for checking the bottles for mice, the percentage of
people who made it out of the wine cellars alive, and the proper attire for
being in a winery. I don’t know about
everyone else, but I know Melanie and I had a great time! Then we loaded back in the car to head to the
market in Tequis (much easier to say than the whole name of the town). Jenika was really looking forward to the
pottery that was supposed to be sold there, but as we were walking in Melanie
told her that she was thinking of the market in San Miguel de Allende. Nevertheless, we enjoyed wandering around the
market talking about Don Quixote art.
After a little nap, we went to La Encrucijada (the Rock House mentioned
in a previous blog) and rocked out until a little after 2am. The rest Sunday I spent sleeping and reading,
further ignoring my grading and studying for my Spanish quiz this coming
Thursday.
The latest on my computer is that the Dell people will be
working on my computer for the next 5-10 business days—I wonder if those are
Mexican business days… TIM! I am
encouraged that my computer is being worked on, but I’m prepared for them not
being able to fix it. We’ll see what
happens!
Thanks for your prayers and encouraging letters—they are
helping! Keep ‘em coming, and if you
think about it, say a prayer for my folks in Kenya.
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