Dia del Bombero

Since we have been in Bucerias, we have spent a lot of time with some of the Proteccion Civil guys. The department provides fire fighting and ambulance service to the Bahia de Banderas. We’ve brought some donations for them from Texas, too.
Alex, who is one of the training officers, speaks English pretty well. He and his partner Ramon go to schools and teach about fire prevention and safety. We have become friends with Alex and his wife and daughter.
Alex told us that August 22 is the national Dia del Bombero, or Day of the Fireman. For several weeks the fire fighters were collecting donations from area businesses for a party that day. Additionally, the Bahia de Banderas was planning formal ceremonies
We received a written invitation to the ceremony and a verbal invitation to the party. The official part began at 9 a.m. We went to the plaza in Valle de Banderas where the municipal offices are located. All the firefighters were there in their dress uniforms. We had never seen them in anything other than their usual fire .
department T-shirts so we were impressed with how official they looked. The short ceremony involved a speech by Dr. Cuevas, president of the Bahia de Banderas, and one by Dr. Claudio Estrada, head of Proteccion Civil. After the official ceremony, the fire fighters got into the ambulances, pick-up trucks and pumper truck for a mini parade. We rode in one of the trucks and got to “help” with the siren.
After the parade, a breakfast was planned at a local restaurant. By this time, Harold was not feeling well so he headed home. I stayed for the breakfast, which was very nice. Some of the wives and a few kids came. Another round of speeches from Dr. Cuevas, Dr. Estrada and a few others took place. Certificates were presented to the fire fighters, breakfast was served, and there was mariachi music.
After breakfast, there was a special Mass held at the church in Valle de Banderas. Other than the Proteccion Civil crew, a few wives and kids there were only a couple people at the Mass. I hitched a ride over to the church with one of the wives. Of course it was all in Spanish, so I don’t really know what was said. Dr. Estrada and assistant chief Clemente Contreras spoke during the Mass. Afterward, the priest blessed all the fire equipment and the firefighters, sprinkling holy water all around.
That was the end of the official program. Then it was time for the fiesta. It was held at a house in San Jose del Valle. The house has a very large, beautiful lot and pool. There is a separate outdoor kitchen. The guys went and brought all the supplies for the fiesta – the grill, tables, chairs, beer, tequila, soda and of course plenty of food!
Since Harold had gone home, I needed a ride to the party. I was given a ride there in one of the new ambulances. All day long, people asked me where Harold was. When I told them he was sick, they all were disappointed that he couldn't come to the party. They also made sure I had plenty to eat and drink, and that I was having a good time.
The families were all invited, so pretty soon lots of people arrived. The swimming pool was a big hit with everyone. All the ladies pitched in and chopped vegetables for salsa, made guacamole and helped set up for the meal. The guys took care of the grilling, of course. The party got going around 2 in the afternoon. Eventually almost everyone went into the pool, either on their own or were thrown in. There was plenty of eating, drinking and fun. Of course there was a boom box so there was music. The location was excellent.
I think I was the only person at the party who was not a member of the fire department or a family member. A few of the guys speak some English, but I definitely got a workout in speaking Spanish, especially with the wives.
About 9 or so, it started raining. Other than moving clothes and towels under cover, the party went on as usual. Then it started raining very hard and there was lots of thunder and lightning. After a bit, Claudio tried to get everyone out of the pool and under cover. He told everyone not to leave until the storm died down. As the storm was tapering off, most of the firefighters ended up going back into the pool before starting to clean up the area. They seemed to get everything picked up pretty well. Claudio, the chief, lives in Bucerias, so his wife and daughter gave me a ride home. Alex also had offered to take me home. Ramon, who lives near Nuevo Vallarta, also offered to give me a ride if I needed it. Harold didn't need to worry about whther or not I was safe!
I had a very fun time all day, but was sad that Harold had to miss it. When I got home, he was still not feeling well and was glad he had come home early.

Cat Tails

Cat Tails
Part One –Monday August 14
A couple of weeks ago a grey striped cat starting showing up on the patio of our next door neighbor. The cat (male) looked amazingly like our cat (formerly female). On occasion, it would jump from the neighbor's terrace to ours, came into the house and consumed our cat's (Rosie) food.Harold made the “mistake” one morning of giving him a bowl of food, after hearing his sorrowful meow when I went outside. (We moved Rosie's food further away from the door, to a point where he would have had to cross a room in front of our two dogs). He became Harold’s new best buddy at that point.We finally decided to ask our neighbor if they had a new cat or was he just hanging around their house. The answer: "sort of".We asked if it would be OK to take the cat to a vet to check out one of the cat's eyes, which appeared to be severely injured.(We were also going to check on the price of making him an "it"). With a shrug of the shoulder, the neighbor indicated it was fine with them. Actually, she said - the cat is yours, and laughed.Right now, either Roosevelt (Rosie), Blinkie or Winkie is resting comfortably, under the circumstances, in our living room after having the two surgeries mentioned above at Dr. Oscar's. What a troop: 1 normal cat and dog, 1 3-legged dog and 1 one-eyed cat. Gotta love it!

Part 2 – Thursday August 17
An update on the kitty story.When we first posted this story, the cat was in fact resting comfortably in the living room. Shortly after that, the still nameless cat woke up. He came upstairs, hopped over the little baby gate we have to keep the dogs away from the cat food, and headed out onto our front balcony. He then disappeared into thin air! He didn't come back that night or the next day. We were beginning to think he ran away, someone picked him up, or who knows what else.We figured he was kitty history.Well.... this morning we had to get up very early to take a friend to the airport. We went outside and who was sitting on top of our wall than the cat. He jumped down off the wall and seemed to be fine. When we got back from the airport he was on the roof of our neighbor's carport. We could tell he had eaten.Then about 10 this morning, he vanished again.I think he's trying to tell us something!
This picture is Rosie, the cat who likes us.


This is the new cat

My cell phone experience

For the record, I’m not really a cell phone, need-to-be-in-constant-communication kind of person. But, I do have a cell phone which comes in handy on occasion.
Many of the cell phones here are on what is called the Amigo Plan, which is a pay as you go service. You need to put more time on the phone at least once every 60 days to keep the service active. Cards are sold in many stores and you punch in the numbers on the card to add the time. My phone only speaks Spanish so I am always afraid I will somehow mess up adding the time. I found out that at Wal-Mart if you buy air time there, you tell the cashier your phone number and pay for the time and it magically appears on your phone. So I usually do that.
Last Friday, I really wanted to use my phone and discovered my 60 days were up and a new card was needed. So I stopped at Wal-Mart to buy 200 pesos of air time. The cashier didn’t really seem too familiar with adding the time and he actually had to punch the numbers in twice. He gave me my receipt. I told him that I had not received a text message on my phone that there was time added. He said it sometimes took a few minutes to show up. I had never had that happen before. I went out to the car and waited a few minutes. Still no time added and I couldn’t use the phone as the 60 days were up. I went back into Wal-Mart to the service desk. The woman there looked at my phone and at my receipt. She, too, told me that it might take some time to show up. I asked what I needed to do if the time didn’t show up. A couple employees conferred and told me I had to go to TelCel, the service provider, if the time didn’t come through.
The TelCel office is near the Sheraton Hotel, and is only open Monday through Friday. Well, over the weekend, still no air time. So I still couldn’t use the phone. I stopped in a TelCel shop where I know the employee speaks English. She confirmed that I needed to go to TelCel.
After Spanish class on Monday I went to TelCel. You get a number and stand in line for assistance. I waited maybe 45 minutes in line and finally got to talk to a clerk. Edgar, the clerk, speaks English, which is a plus since explaining a problem is difficult for me in Spanish. He looked at my phone, looked at my receipt, looked at his computer. Then he went to consult with his supervisor. He came back, looked at the phone, the receipt and the computer again. He went back and returned with the supervisor. They told me that they needed to do further research on this and Edgar would call me the next day. I expressed disbelief that he would call, but he said he would.
Well, of course he did not call so back I went to TelCel on Wednesday after school. I was able to speak to the same supervisor right away. He explained that Edgar had not called me until that morning because he had nothing to report. He said it would be another day or two to resolve and Edgar would call me.
I tried to convince him to at least give me some more days to use the time I already have, but he couldn’t so that. He also couldn’t just give me the 200 peso credit.
Thursday, Edgar called to tell me that I would need to return to Wal-Mart as they were the source of the error. I explained to him that Wal-Mart had already told me to go to TelCel. He was unable to give me a letter to give Wal-Mart explaining their error. I was very frustrated and told Edgar I was certain Wal-Mart would not help me and it would be useless for me to go there. I also said I would return to TelCel on Friday if I couldn’t get it fixed.
We went out for a while Thursday evening and when we came home there was a message from Edgar. He had gone to Wal-Mart himself on his own time after work and gotten them to add my air time. I checked my phone, and sure enough, there was my credit!!!
I told Harold I should take a little something to Edgar for fixing the problem. I made a little bag of candy for him and took it Friday afternoon. I also thanked him for his help and care.
If this were the US, I would have written a note to his supervisor pointing out what a good job he did. But I wasn’t sure if he would possibly actually get in trouble for doing it on his own, so I did not.
When I got home, Harold said Edgar had called in the morning to make sure I had gotten the message and that everything was OK. Harold thanked him for going out of his way to help me. Harold said that Edgar somewhat sheepishly told him that he went to Wal-Mart since his wife asked him to pick up a few items. Harold told him that he should then thank his wife for us!
No matter why he actually went, Edgar did go out of his way to solve my problem and I really appreciate it!
(I left out the detail here of all the bad things I said about TelCel while this was going on)

Learning Spanish

Learning Spanish

Before we moved to Mexico I took several Spanish classes. Actually, the first class I took was an immersion class in Guatemala before we even thought of moving to Mexico. I took a couple conversational classes in Waco, too. We have books and CDs to help us learn.
I try to use my Spanish as much as possible but it is still woefully inadequate. Harold has always resisted signing up for a class until a couple months ago. Several members of the Amigos de Bucerias group were forming a class in Bucerias so he signed up, too. His class is one hour a day, 3 days a week. I can tell he is learning a lot!
I looked around at the options and decided to sign up for a class taught by Melchor Cortes. He uses the Warren Hardy method of teaching. http://spanishschoolvallarta.com. The curriculum is 4 levels. At first I wondered if I should sign up for Level 1, since I didn’t consider myself a rank beginner. Let me tell you right now, Level 1 was an excellent choice for me. There are several other folks in the class who had the same thoughts and have reached the same conclusion. Everyone says that the have gaps in their knowledge which would prove to be a problem if they didn’t follow the curriculum from the start.
The class is 3 hours a day, 3 days a week, for 3 weeks. And there is a fair amount of homework, too. Summer seemed to be a good time for the class since there isn’t so much going on. And the school offers a discount for local folks in the summer. There are 13 people in the class. Most are Puerto Vallarta residents, some run their own businesses, some are retired, and a few are here on vacation.
The class is very structured which is actually a big help. We don’t get off the topic with questions and stories like some classes do. Each class is a combination of review, some new material, reading, listening and vocabulary. As opposed to some other classes, there is a lot of instruction in English. The curriculum was developed to teach Spanish to English speaking people. Our teacher, Melchor, is Mexican but speaks English very well.
I asked one of the other students who is here on vacation if he would recommend the class. He said yes he would. He felt like there is adequate classtime and homework to make real progress and still plenty of time to enjoy his vacation.
I can tell that my comprehension and ability to converse have improved. I have been speaking Spanish as much as possible. I tell people that I am learning, and have told people I know to be sure to correct my errors.
The beginning course really helps in knowing how to structure sentances. I know how little children must feel when they are first able to do something. I am still amazed when I can have a conversation and both parties know what’s going on!
Having a telephone conversation in another language can be difficult. This week, I managed to place a call andleave a message for someone. It worked, as the person called me back. And today a friend called and even when I spoke English, he was only speaking Spanish. We arranged that Harold would help him buy a load of gravel tomorrow. Or maybe I agreed to give him Harold’s truck. Ha ha.
I am pleased with the progress I am making. I know there will be setbacks and frustrations in the learning process, too. Heck, little children learn to speak Spanish, I should be able to, too.