So Much to Tell

23 May 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Bible, Faithful, Family, Food, Friends, God, Happiness, Spanish, Summer, Travel

Friday afternoon, bus up. Saturday evening, bus home. Barely 24 hours in Michigan, yet it’s Thursday night now, late, and I’m still fighting to tell you about it. School hardly over, my room just emptied, I got on a bus with The Jen and her sister, Katie, and we went to Michigan.

I want to tell you all about it. I do. I want to tell you so much and tell you so well that I’ve thought myself, planned myself, into a corner. I wrote a post, just now. Part of one, anyway. About my time in Michigan. But there’s too much to tell and I wasn’t telling well, so I stopped. Began again. And here I am.

I told you, in March, about Jen’s sister visiting school. Remember? I told you about our shared love of Spanish and school and children and the way I stored our conversation away in my heart; a woman who loves the Lord, and His Word. This same sister, Kristen her name, graduated from New Tribes Bible Institute last weekend.

The Jen, sweet girl two dorm doors down, stopped one day last month, outside my door. I was on my computer, typing. Looking up, looking across my bed, across the room, I smiled at her. She dimpled back. This is routine: I like my desk there, the door open, so that I can see the hallway, see those who pass by. Jen passes frequently. She stopped this time, and in our brief conversation, she said graduation, Michigan, Kristen. Half serious, mostly joking, I said I’d go along.

Joke turned serious and later, sitting on Jen’s bright yellow sheets, I clicked to Megabus, bought a ticket to Michigan.

Katie, Jen, me. Four hours, more even, on a bus to Michigan. They sat behind me, the two sisters; one older, Jen the younger. I sat one row up. Backpack next to me, feet against the window, I watched Michigan fly past the window. Trees and grass line the highway; long, tall, strong grass that seems to glow in the sun. The trees are green, too. Wide and thick and many. It’s just trees, bushes, grass, but I breathed tight in, held my breath at the clean, brilliant, freshness of it all. This I love about Michigan.

New Tribes Bible Institute- students call it NTBI, roll it around their tongues, quick- is one building. Used to be an elementary school, maybe a middle school. Now it’s classroom building, dorms, dining hall, offices, all in one and walking the hallways feels like a little bit of everything. The voices down the hall, in the dorms, are adult, mature. They talk about missions training and the Bible and where God is taking them, and this is a place of leading and prayer and faith and I soak up every word while I’m there.

There’s a world map in the downstairs hallway. It’s big, tall: I’m eye-level with Brasil. Kristen gives a tour when we arrive; her dorm room is on the third floor. We climb up and down those stairs, together, in groups, pairs, alone, all the day long, and my heart, mind catches every time I pass that map. Think of the lives who are here, now. Think of the hearts that are growing, the minds that are learning. The Lord they serve, He has plans, big, for them. The Word they love, it will bring hope, much, to people all over that huge wall map.

The school, these students, have so very much.

The ceremony is the next day, then a reception in the dining hall at the school. I line up with Jen, and a brother, tall, and we stack miniature plates with cheese, crackers, thick little cubes of meat. Students, graduates, families, overflow the dining hall. They are in the halls. In the foyer. In the yard. Children, little boys in collared shirts, little girls in sundresses, run in and out of the adults, play on the park. There are more siblings now, and cousins- first? Once removed?- and friends and friends of friends, and introductions are short, conversations long.

It feels like family. Family when we’re upstairs, getting ready. Jen and sisters and friends and we’re all putting on dresses, earrings, makeup. Feels like family afterwards, when we sit around in the sun and drink fruit punch and talk. Feels like family when there are hugs, congratulations, thank you for coming, see you later.

There’s more to tell, no doubt. More about New Tribes and the graduation ceremony, and Jen’s brother driving to the church with the windows down, my hair and Jen’s whipping in the wind. More about the 5k the graduates ran on the morning of graduation, or the night before, driving slow at 10pm, stopping at corners to mark the 5k route with chalk. More about The Jen and Katie and Kristen and sisters I don’t have, who made me feel another sister, at home. More about God’s will and God’s plan and how great He really is.

There’s so much more to tell, but I’ll leave it there for now.

~Natalia

Natalia Could Have Married a Mexican, Part One

16 Apr 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Fear, Food, Humour, Sleep, Spanish, Train, Work

If you’ve been around a little while, you might remember a rather dramatic story that I related to you about a young man stumbling onto campus, telling me I was pretty, and so thoroughly flustering me that I ended up giving him my number on the spot, mostly because I was too unnerved by the entire experience to formulate the word “no”.

It was a great story and a time of my life that I look back on with nostalgia. And also general confusion, because I’m still just not sure why…

Anyway.

I ride the train to work, as I’m sure many of you are aware. An hour there, an hour back; soon my cumulative train time will be measurable in months, or years even. These train rides became, over the past months, a source of rather high stress for me, and as part of my No Fear regimen, I began listening to Chip Ingram sermons in podcast form during my commute. Thus, my time on the train generally looks something like this: Going to work, I listen to Chip in a rather dozy manner for approximately 12 minutes, before completely loosing all consciousness for the next 30 minutes. Then I wake up to a new podcast now playing in my headphones, my neck stiff and my mouth dry from all this sleeping-on-the-train-head-back-mouth-breathing. I am truly at my most attractive while sleeping on the train.

However, least you think I’m wasting my (free) podcast subscription by never actually listening to them while I’m awake, I spend the return trip re-listening to the same sermon. This is because 1) I change trains twice on the way back to school and therefore must remain conscious, and 2) I do truly want to hear these sermons.

So today. I did the whole fall asleep listening to a sermon, wake up with four people staring at me and wonder if I was snoring deal on the way to work. On the way back, I missed the train by roughly 240 seconds, and consoled myself by going into the little convenience store next to the tracks and continuing my semester-long search for a bag of Takis. You know: mexican chips that look a bit like cigarettes and taste like fire and chile. They’re the best. I’ve been craving Takis de Fuego for weeks now, and I was pleased to find a suitable substitute.

So I sat on the first train, ate my mexican fire snack, and listened to Chip tell me all about the book of Revelations.

The second train is where it got good. First, there was a young girl, whose age I estimate to about nine years old, who was entertaining both her family and everyone in our general vicinity by answering the trivia facts that her father proposed. Did you know that the teleprompter stopped working during one of Bill Clinton’s speeches? I had no idea. It was so good, people, that I turned off my podcast. That wonderful preacher, the auditory gold that has gotten me through weeks of train fear: I turned it off.

And then the child got off the train and I sat there and alternately ate my Fake Takis and then decided to have (temporary) self-restraint and put the bag back in my purse, only to open it four minutes later. It was around this time that I truly noticed the individual sitting across from me. I’ll not pain you with the detailed description that I could provide, but suffice to say: He was hispanic.

If you are unaware of my passion-bordering-on-obsession with all things Latin (including men), I encourage you to type the word “Spanish” in the search bar of this blog and peruse the results. Or, if you don’t have time for that, I’ll summarize: I like hispanic guys. The end.

But this guy. So we’re sitting there, and I’m texting a friend or two, but there is no sermon-listening occurring, and him and I wander eyes around the train car, and I look out the window a lot, but I know that he’s there, and I know that he knows that I’m there. So we make eye contact every couple of minutes, which sounds more awkward to write than it was in real life.

And then, oh friends, and then, the door that you’re not supposed to open but someone invariably does; the door that connects the two train cars, opened and a large, highly intoxicated individual stumbled through. My seat being on the opposite side of the car, I could not fully appreciate what was going on, but my hispanic eye contact friend could, and he raised his eye brows and tilted his head towards me, amused smile playing on his lips. I looked over in time to watch the large man spill something on a fellow passenger, who leapt angrily out of his seat, while the drunk one swung unsteadily across the aisle as the train accelerated forward.

{Part Two coming soon!}

~Natalia

Several Sentences and a Couple Fragments

12 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Little Sisters, Photos, Spanish, Train, Work

I eavesdropped on another Spanish conversation on the train today.

Really blatantly eavesdropped.

Then I texted the Mother to remind her to remind me that I’m going to marry a Spanish-speaking man.

I was so engrossed that I almost missed my stop, and I dawdled lengthily before finally uprooting myself and booking it off that train.

I came back to school and got a spicy chicken patty with melted swiss on top and sat in my room in the dark and dilly dallied over doing anything productive.

So I checked Facebook and drank lemonade and licked swiss cheese grease off my fingers, but I still left oily fingerprints on my phone.

I forgot to tell you that before I left for work, I dumped the contents of my closet bin on my bed.

So I came back to the room with a styrofoam box containing ranch dressing and the aforementioned spicy chicken with swiss, and the whole deal with Facebook was avoiding dealing with the Mount Horeb of random on my bed.

And then Jen came into the room and she sat at my desk chair, prohibiting me from doing so, so I got into gear and reassembled my closet, while Jen watched my slide show screen saver.

The slide show screen saver is simultaneously a very good and highly obnoxious thing, because Hello! Fun pictures to look at all the time! Oh hey, I had forgotten about that time! Oh, wait! I need to look at ALL THE PICTURES right now. Homework/real life/ relationships/ work can wait!

See? Good and bad.

But mostly good, because I didn’t even know this picture existed until this afternoon.

tangamangajump
Tanga Manga Park
Mexico
March 2010

~Natalia

Snow

27 Dec 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, God, Longing, Love, Mexico, Miss, Questions, Spanish, Weather

There’s snow falling outside. Well, actually, it’s stopped falling for the moment. But it was before and I stood in the kitchen and watched the white specks swirl past the window. Kitchen faces the brick wall of someone else’s world, but in between this home and that home, snow flakes fill the open air.

I drove to work. Drove carefully, carefully, but I’m worried about being late and I should have wiped the snow off the car windows before I left. I can see what I need to see, visibility’s not incredible right now, anyway. And there’s a thin heap of snow balanced on my window, and I’m only rolling fifteen miles an hour, surely nothing can go wrong. But you never know and I roll down the window, watching snow pack together in a heap, and the air is cold and flakes swing gently into the car, landing soft on my face, my hair. And the light is green and the window’s still rolling down and the tiny snow bank on the outside of the window collapses into the car, and I’m driving up the street with a pile of frozen white on my arm.

It kept snowing while I was at work, too, and the parking lot’s near empty by the time I come back out. There’s a snow scraper in the car and I’m careful to use it, but I almost forget to clear the snow off my window again, because I can hear Taylor Swift on the radio inside the car, and I’m thinking about Mexico again.

And the car wiggles on the way around the corner, but I’m driving so very slowly and it’s more fun than scary, really. I park in the garage, because I think that’s what the mother would have prescribed, but I don’t like going in the back door, so I walk around to the front. Walk straight up the middle of the alley, and it’s so still that I can hear the snow packing together under my boots. A soft, straining, settling sound. And the snow’s still falling gentle and wet on my head and coat and it’s settling on everything it can touch.

And before I shuffled the car into the garage, before I pulled around the corner to the street I’ve grown up on, there’s a stop sign on the corner, and snow is everywhere and snow can be so much. Because glance up, look around: snow is beautiful. Stunning, breathtaking wonder on every surface that it can get its sticky grip on. But there are other words with snow, too; like dangerous and wet and slippery and cold. And there’s an inches-thick white layer on everything in sight, but can you even tell what’s underneath? Because snow can be deceptive, tricky, disillusioned, too.

And God’s put beauty in this world, and He’s shattering this night with the silent wonder of snow falling, and a strange guilt starts to creep in, because I should be appreciating all this. And I am, actually. I really do love the snow, and I do breathe in tight when white-laden branches catch my eye; bright ice reflecting soft yellow street light glow. But I answered my mother’s phone because she was wrist-deep in dish water and the other end speaks Spanish and I forgot to not, and one time Hermana Tere asked me about snow.

And Mexico missing’s not always so close by, and the ache of longing softens with distraction. But Skype conversation at midnight says unless you do what you love, you will never be happy and there was more, too, but there’s snow outside and tightness in my heart because I know what I love and I know where I love, but snow isn’t just snow, and it will never be that easy, will it?

~Natalia

Supposed to Be

17 Nov 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Chicago, Christmas, Friends, God, Kiddos, Mexico, Miss, Sovereign, Spanish

Wednesday morning, maybe even Tuesday night, homework rules my mind. Empty time loaded with assignments, trudging through to-do lists both academic and otherwise. Sitting in class, eating, on the train, I can’t truly focus because a brain that’s spent every waking hour planning my next move, next assignment, doesn’t just stop on command.

Chapel, class, meals, and sitting. I shouldn’t be sitting anyway, no doubt. Reeling, reeling: what’s next? What are my goals for this morning, tonight, before Sunday?

Work and outside commitments, time for conversation with friends, too- Heaven forbid I’m a total hermit. Mind’s going, going, and I’m balancing the tightrope between just about making it, and crashing through deadlines, last-minute scrambling to get it together.

But Kat’s downtown for the morning and I’m gloriously free. Mind says no; I’ll not think about to-do, about due by Monday, due by Monday, due by Tuesday. Turn that off and enjoy time with a friend God placed in my life before I can remember and who He’s determined to keep in my life. I don’t always recognize a great gift when He’s dropped it into my story, and I don’t see immediately how truly wonderful Kat time is, until hours in.

Lunch on the other side, the lake side, of Michigan Avenue, and maybe Kat’ll head back to the suburbs; back to the school she calls home. But they’re setting up for the Christmas Light parade and more and more people are filling the slick city sidewalk and no, what if you stayed just a bit longer?

So back to the room and sitting on my bed, squares of light warm and clean on the floor, on the wall. She reads, I write, and God whispers normal and breathes peace over the pair. There’s a bond of time and trust between us and it’s easy and comfortable to sit and do homework together. Country music (she taught me to like it) hums out of my computer and we work, swapping occasional stories as the sun moves ever so slightly and the clock slides towards 4pm.

Project complete, assignment over, there’s a study break in there, too, and we’re close together on the bed, pulling the computer back and forth from my lap to hers, clicking through YouTube, Facebook, and more.

Study break, parade, and we grab coats and ding, elevator downstairs. We’re blocks from Michigan Avenue, and an hour early, but people are thronging to that Magnificent street. Hearts pumping happily, we step briskly through crowds and past sweet cheek babies bundled in strollers.

Sun sets and parade’ll start in a bit or two, and we’ve found a spot along the street where we can see the street… more or less. Two women with dark hair, three little angels with them, stand directly in front of us. The smallest child, slick black hair pulled into a messy ponytail, has my attention before she even makes a noise. But her mother hoists her up and the little one’s at eye level with me now and shy black eyes look me over before turning away.

People are packed in all around us; three rows deep in front and five rows deep behind. Conversations flow and build on every side, and a parade marshal standing in the street is leading the wave among the crowd. I can hear so much, see so much, but the baby child next to me is exclaiming in Spanish and her words hit the Mexico ache in my heart like few things do. Parade marches on, and Kat and I, we exclaim and yell, taking pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and cheering exultantly when the lights on the trees all around us click on in an instant.

Parade, Christmas, lights. Kat, pictures, music. We’re pressed tight together, everyone in this crowd, and it only gets worse when we pull away and begin to move south, to the river, to the fireworks. But there’s a thrilling kind of excitement in so many people together, moving and living and celebrating.

And there’s fireworks, too, and we sit on a ledge by the river, thousands upon thousands of people all around, and watch colored fire explode amongst skyscraper after skyscraper. There’s so much there to celebrate, to enjoy. And I do.

And all the time, the sweet child’s voice rings in my ears, and the tug of Mexico pulls on my heart hard. Missing is sweet and terrible and red and green explosions of beauty over the river and suddenly, I think of a story that Hermana Tere told me about forgetting to pick her cousin’s daughter up from a doctor’s appointment. And life can’t be easy for a moment, can it?

Because homework comes relentless and it’s such a wonderful night and my heart breaks with emotion I can’t, or won’t, give name to, because it’s a multi-ethnic city and Spanish rings soft in every place I look. There’s a conversation of nothing but Princess Bride quotes in my text messages, and hot chocolate party in the lounge, and everything in me fights the homework I must return to now.

Every piece of my life demands more of my attention than I can give it and I feel like a puzzle divvied up, yet underneath it all, there’s a foundation- there has to be a foundation. Because God gives only what He can help me handle and He is sovereign and His will is perfect and my heart’s long since rubbed raw because a part of it is left in Mexico. But maybe that’s supposed to be.

Maybe all of this is supposed to be.

~Natalia

Has My Heart

10 Oct 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Chicago, Longing, Mexico, Miss, Remember, Spanish

I’ve been putting it off rather a long time, actually. I think about it frequently, but it’s been easy to stuff it down a little. I’ve told you- between classes and Missions Conference and work and friendships, I’ve had other things to fill my mind.

But with every activity that I pour myself into, with every task I jump on, every experience I relish, something stops me, grabs me, and puts me right back where I was.

Where I was thinking about Mexico.

Because it would seem that every single thing I do, every place I go, is brimming with reminders.

There’s a little boy I coach, chubby seven-year old with a swimsuit just a tad too big for him. There’s nothing Mexican about this little one. But he has a story to tell and I lean down, squatting to his level on the white tiled pool deck. And he tells me his story, and I hear him and I’m listening, but my heart is somewhere else entirely.

Because the way he blinks, the nervous little twitch of a blink that lasts too long and happens too frequently, has taken me right back. Right back to a little boy, ten years old with dark skin and curly black hair cropped close. A little boy just arrived, barely a month at the Casa Hogar.

It’s nervous thing, a habit learned and ingrained, who knows where from. Practice good or bad, the blink, with the accompanying nose twitch, is a part of him, and as his little face swims in my memory, it’s inextricably bound to this. This blink, nose twitch. This habit.

9pm on a weeknight, and I’m almost back to campus. Work two hours, commute almost an hour each way. I’ve spent some quality time on the train, and I’m never bored. My favorite stop is the one across from the community college. There are several in this city, and I’m not sure what sets this school apart. But the school sets this train stop apart by virtue of its mere proximity.

Metal doors lurch open, students board, doors shut haltingly, and we’re on our way again. I’m sitting in the front section of the car, and to my increasingly heightening interest three Hispanics take the seats across the aisle from me. I’m white and they’re not and I’m not supposed to understand what they say, but I do.

They’re talking about where they live and housing and neighborhoods and jobs both current and previous, but I could honestly care less about the topic; that’s not what I’m listening to, anyway. I’m unashamedly eavesdropping, and each piece of Spanish slang, each familiar mannerism, each markedly mexican trait drives deep into my heart.

Because I’ve been in hundreds of conversations, with countless individuals. Manuel and Tere’s home, the car, the office, the church, the kitchen, Casa Hogar, the school, outside; we’ve been places and said things and exchanged words and the same trademark communication quirks thread throughout mexican culture.

The laugh, the sigh, the way words are picked up and laid back down again, the topics, the exclamations.

I’m silly because I’m sitting alone on the el, hardly suppressing my grin, as the Spanish language washes over me. But then it’s time to switch trains, stand on the platform and wait for the next train, and I have to get off. And I stand in the chilly fall air and the longing for Mexico, to be immersed once more in a place where that language, those jokes and interjections, fill my head and my heart constantly; that longing gnaws at me.

There’s more, too.

If I kept a list, I could tell you a hundred different things. More than one hundred reminders of the country, the city, the family, the culture, that holds my heart.

Mexico has my heart and will keep my heart.

And lately, it’s had a fair portion of my mind, too

~Natalia

Bullet Point Post: Roach Alert

18 Jul 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Bullet Point Post, Casa Hogar, Church, Family, Friends, Humour, Kiddos, Mexico, Prayer, Spanish, Teach

• I’m once more sitting at the dining table in Manuel and Tere’s house, my second home. My legs are crossed on the seat, my trusty Old Navy flip flops kicked helter skelter somewhere under the table. This specific sitting position has two advantages: 1) I’m comfortable, and my posture is actually pretty good at the moment. 2) Feet up = no roaches touching me tonight.

• I’m alone in the dining room, but Manuel and Tere and Karen are in the bedroom. I can hear their voices. This is reassuring because it means that, in the event that a cockroach does salir, I don’t have to worry about waking them up to kill it.

• Not that I’m above waking someone up in order to dispose of a roach…

• Talk about something else, shall we?

• Ana, with whom I share a room while residing in this Mexican home, is currently serving as a counselor at week-long children’s camp put on by our church here. Beki, the resident little sister, and Manuelito, are also at camp. They’re having fun, yes, yes, but we’ve been counting the hours until they return since they left.

• 11pm last night found me in the backseat of the car, as Hermano Manuel sped up the dark freeway, on our way to deliver an urgently needed antihistamine to the camp. I seriously underestimated how excited I would be to catch sight of familiar faces amidst the swarm of campers. Casa Hogar kiddos, friends from church, my Mexican siblings; our reason for visiting the camp was not optimal, but we all enjoyed the brief visit.

• Upon arrival home last night, Hermana Tere offered to lend me Karen’s little dog, a cotton-ball-colored toy poodle, since Karen was also away for the night. I kindly accepted the proffered creature. Actually, to be slightly more honest, I was so desperate to not sleep in the bedroom alone that I not only accepted Dory’s canine presence, but pulled her little bed as close to my own as possible, and I may or may not have spent a little bit of time talking to her… Maybe.

• I then failed to take her to the bathroom in the madrugada and began my morning mopping up a puppy mess.

• Being Wednesday, we went to church this evening. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m bullet pointing my pensamientos as they come, so I might as well remind you that, in addition to my church in Chicago, I’m completely enthralled with the church I attend here. The preaching, the way God uses the lessons and music to grow me and reassure me and teach me, the community, the emphasis on prayer; I’m so thankful.

• On a related note, Ana recently recounted to me a story involving someone from the church. I was almost sure that I knew who she was talking about, but not positive, and I told her so. You’d probably recognize her if you saw her, Ana assured me. I nodded, adding that, while I don’t know their names, I would probably recognize much of the congregation por vista. And they all probably recognize you, Ana laughed. Yes, the tone of my skin and my hair does not exactly lend itself to anonymity.

• It recently came to my attention that my ability to speak Spanish, which is completely a gift from God, and not at all something I could have conjured up on my own, is directly related to my mental/emotional/spiritual state. Distracted, worried, emotional, and my ability to communicate declines rapidly and rather instantaneously. Thankfully, while I don’t think I’ll ever escape the teasing and jokes about my mistakes and mispronunciations, those I interact with here are very patient with me, supplying words when my story turns into a blind search for a word I don’t know, and correcting my mistakes when they really matter.

• Karen just flicked the kitchen light off and took the dogs back to bed. I haven’t seen any roaches yet, and I think I want to keep it that way. I hope your Thursday is bright, encouraging, and roach-free!

~Natalia

Bullet Point Post: A La Mexico

09 Jul 2012 4 Comments

by nataliaria in Bullet Point Post, Casa Hogar, Food, Friends, Kiddos, Mexico, Simple, Spanish, Swimming, Teach

• I started English classes today. Teaching, not taking, although I could probably use a couple of classes in this crazy language. One time, while I was living here last winter, after writing a late-night, rather incoherent blog post, Stevy informed me that I was beginning to write as if English were indeed my second language. This was both hilarious and sadly, rather true.

• No, but for real. I spent three hours this morning teaching English to assorted groups at the Casa Hogar. I, and I say this fully aware of the repercussions it may carry, spent most of this time wishing desperately that I actually payed attention when my mother taught English here. Beki tells me that the woman brought in real sugar for them all to sample when she covered baking items. If only I could bring in real jungle animals…

• There was a cockroach in the room that Ana and I share this morning. Now, sitting alone in the dining room, I’m mentally composing lists of all the ways a roach could approach me.

• It’s a long list.

• My day at the Casa Hogar ended with sitting in Cuarto Uno with Ana, Karen, and the oldest girls. We told stories and retold stories and teased each other and laughed until it was 11pm, and suddenly time to go.

• Occasionally, it occurs to me to wonder if I was supposed to be Mexican.

• But then I’d have to deal with more cockroaches.

• I assigned each English class homework and spent half my afternoon sitting on beds doing the very homework I had assigned, while my littlest students looked on in interest.

• Little Rosa asked me again today if I spoke English. The English class having done little to convince her, she devised the hardest test as seven-year-old could to test my fluency: say all the vowels in English.

• To her utter amazement, I passed the test with flying colors.

• I was recruited to teach two classes in this program of activities that Hermana Tere has devised: English, and swimming. Swim class starts on Wednesday, with the oldest girls, and I must say, I’m as interested to see how it unfolds as they are. I’ll be sure to report back after Wednesday.

• I’m Facebook chatting with Carly about simple, and the plausibility of unplugging completely from the cell phone era, and the irony of blogging while fb chatting while my iPhone charges next to me is very nearly too much to bear.

• So, I think I’ll go to bed. Today was English class and kitchen work and friend time, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

~Natalia

Close to the Heart

27 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Family, Friends, Love, Mexico, Miss, Spanish

I visited my old Spanish class this evening.

The NU class that I took with my father three years ago, when the whole Moving to Mexico for a Year thing was a vague concept.

I loved that class.

Loved the professor.

Still talk to her, catch up with her, visit her occasionally.

Stevy is in the class right now, which gave me a good excuse to visit.

It was fun.

Just like I remembered it.

And, for a moment, as I sat in exactly the same little desk that I sat in three years ago, I thought about Mexico.

Thought about the Casa Hogar, and about Kenia, and about Manuel and Tere.

And then I did a mental count down of the months until my next potential stint in Mexico, and it suddenly seemed very soon.

And a little bit of the sense of “rightness” that I feel while I’m there welled up inside me.

And my heart kind of squeezed and swelled at the same time. And I wanted to jump and hug someone very tightly.

But I didn’t, because I was sitting quietly in my old Spanish class.

And then we moved on to something else and my mind moved right along with the class, and Mexico faded from the forefront of my mind.

But it didn’t fade that far, because something so close to one’s heart can’t really get very far from one’s mind.

~Natalia

Chula

06 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Food, Mexico, Spanish

I didn’t know what it meant, until sometime early on in my 2011 stint living with Manuel and Tere. We were sitting around the little brown dining table, eating a late lunch, when Hermano Manuel used the word in a sentence.

Chula.

I looked up. I had heard the word before, and was unsure what it meant. I listened intently to the conversation, my eyes flicking back and forth across the table as the conversation bounced from person to person. I waited for some clue as to what the mystery word meant.

After a moment or two, the conversation swung over to me, as someone brought up the notable similarity between my own last name and this mysterious work.

I’ve heard it before, but I don’t know what it means. I admitted.

This confession was met with general smiles around the table. Really? You don’t know? They chuckled. I waited for someone to fill me in.

It means beautiful, pretty. Hermano Manuel explained, and then illustrated his explanation with our pastor’s habit of affectionately referring to the pastor’s wife as chula.

Ah. I get it.

Which is why it made me smile tonight, when I left the new Mexican restaurant down the street, and a young employee called out, “adios, chula!” as I pushed through the door.

~Natalia

Previous Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 198 other followers