We hope that you are all well. We are here! We are well! We are thankful for all your prayers and support. These past few days are rather blurry but I will try my best to jot down all those first impressions that are always fun to laugh at later.
Let me start with the kids. They are doing so remarkably well and it is so amazing to see this bright and vibrant new world through their eyes. As you can likely imagine, Mexico City is hugely crowded (pop. 23 million) and as we walk down the narrow, traffic hazardous streets we are all blown away by the colourful apartment like houses that are sandwiched together.(Ziko and Hizee are getting to see their share of orange and pink buildings to satisfy their favourite colour cravings.) Zam is particularly keen on the trees, which look rather Dr.Sueussish and lush. We are told we are in a middle class neighbourhood, and while it is crowded with shops and houses and the like, it is also quite lush and green with trees and various forms of vegitation (we didn´t expect to see this).There is also a very cool park within walking distance that we have visited each day, and it just so happens that it is also a dog park and we´ve seen tonnes of very beautiful dogs of every breed imaginable.
We have tried a lot of yummy Mexican food already. Today we went out for tacos with the MCC reps. The tacos were not at all like the tacos we eat in Canada …I liked these much better. They bring tiny, round corn tortillas to your table together with a plate of meat shaved off a huge skewer (this meat was pork). Then they bring a plate with pineapple, onions and cilantro and you put that on top of your taco, along with some red or green salsa (and you can squirt some lime on it if you wish). What a yummy combination, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Zam is astounding us with his ability to try the new foods that are being offered to him. While he does not like everything he tries, at least he is trying it. Hizee is also eating well, but Ziko is eating the best…he eats and drinks everything that he is given (and in abundance)!
The country reps (whom we are staying with – the upstairs of their apt´is a large room with two sets of bunk beds and two double beds that we have to ourselves) are great people! They have a little girl named Isabelle who loves the kids (especially Ziko). Isabelle is 21 months old. We are having a lot of fun playing with her!
Today we will be travelling to Olinala (our future home) on an overnight bus—we leave here in the evening and get there in the morning (about a nine hour ride). We will stay in Olinala until next Wednesday or so. After Olinala we will go to Cuernavaca ( a city about 2 hours from here) for language study for one week. We will stay with a Mexican family. This is great news as we are feeling a little lost without having even the basics in Spanish. After the one week language study we will come back to Mexico City for a few days before flying to Chihuahua for our team meetings (Sept 16-21). We will then come back to Mexico City before heading to the Chiapas for language school. We have decided to break up our language schooling a bit and only take part of it now (with more to come later). Hence, we will be heading to Olinala on November 1^st or so, to finally settle into our new home.