The Stay

The first two weeks are over and in the meantime I already found out what a real rainy day in Monterrey means. Since the passing storm of hurricane Dean and now Felix we had 5 days in a row rainy days. In Monterrey this means that in the morning you have nice weather followed by rain and rain again. Even in the night it can rain heavily followed by thunderstorms and heavy wind sometimes. One day we had that much rain that the water boiled out of the sewers and in our street even out of the houses. The rain kept on pouring for just 1 ½ hours enough to put the whole street into a waterfall of mud, water and waste, most of the waste is house trash rushing down the hill and coming from the people living a little bit higher then us. Because we are living at our parents house (a poor neighborhood) we can do nothing to prevent the flooding of the pathways and streets. Even in the house the water came to unknown heights and we had to check that the rooms we are living are not flooded. But because we are living in a hill side the water passes us only and the rest flushes downwards to the river. At the bottom of the hill the water flooding is the worst, because the sewers are not able to absorb all the water at once and all the water rushes in a stream of force towards the river, streets are changing into dangerous waterfalls. In no time the bridges over the river cannot be used anymore, causing major traffic jams because it all happened on that moment when everybody came from work. Even the streets downwards the hills are now become dangerous and craterous river streams were no eye can see what is underneath the brown muddy water. At that moment you expect that people take care and drive easy but just the opposite is true, they are driving even faster and not taking care of any unexpected wholes in the street. After the rain it stops as sudden it started and the sun starts shining again, you think its over but the worst is yet to come. Just because of this rain and the sun shining again the temperature is taking high levels and before you know it, it feels like living in a jungle, and with the jungle the really horror show starts. In a jungle all kinds of insects are starting to fly and crawl in search of dry and warm shelters, and we are just in the middle of it. Because of the moist and hot temperatures of sometimes 30 degrees insects I never saw before start to show there presents, mosquito’s as big as 5 centimeters, eating you up alive during the night or just when you are in a room watching television. In the meantime they seem to have every night a “fiesta del comido” because I already bitten 40 times and I am still counting. Every night I have to cream myself with a kind of hazardous “anti-insecticides” that makes my skin burn terrible but it seems the only way to kill these beasts. Sometimes I forget a spot and they hit me again. I think this cream is not a regular product we could sell in Europe, but anyhow I am happy, it keeps at least the bites away. Once I did not use it and the day after I already counted 10 bites more and all itching like hell. We are now looking for a “clamboe”, which is a kind of net over your bed, but as everything in Mexico it goes very slow to arrange things here. About the other insects I even do not want to talk, because everything is a size bigger then you expect, like yesterday we had a visit of a thousand feet worm which is looking like a stretched scorpion and 20 centimeters long, horror I can tell you, not talking about the cucarachas that are sometimes pop up like an unwanted bug. I can tell you that till now |I kept my room super clean, as an expert I doing each week now the disinfection of the whole room and inspecting all cloth, just in case, but it is necessary to survive in this jungle, and they are becoming like unwanted house pets sometimes, and only because of the rain season. Jajajaja.

Talking about arranging things I still awaiting my second interview of my work but for some reason they are still in process about my benefits and starting date. I also still awaiting my call for the permission to stay and work in Mexico anyhow everything seem here to be not as nicely organized as you expect it would. I mean they have everything and similar to Europe here but everything is “mañana” and at this moment I can be very happy that I arranged already a lot from out Holland. The internet is a horror here, because modem connections seem not to be accepted every time here (forcing you to buy the expensive ADSL connection) causing you even to learn more patience then you already had to endure. If you let come somebody from the telephone company for example and you complain because of a bad connection you first get a number, kind of waiting list, then after 2 days a man shows up and looks at the connections from out his car knocks on some doors and then goes home again because the tree that causing the problem is on the neighborhood side and needs to be cut, but for this the man need permission of the neighbor. Only the neighbor is not at home means he cannot do anything, and goes without doing anything back to the office again. If you call again the whole procedure starts all over again. Seen the situation that the neighbor is always working and comes home late the problem will probably never be solved. So you can see how small things can become a major problem, because without a good connection the internet connection is even not possible. The only way out is to go to a internet café, but then you need to make expenses again and you cannot do everything you want for example uploading pictures from an USB stick is not everywhere wanted or even possible, they still have old 520 MB machines working on a network build by the owners themselves. Anyhow I am working on it to solve that problem trust me!!

In the meantime we found our house and it seems that we can arrange this week the contract to move in. It is in a super nice neighborhood and looks like a working class surrounding, with school, supermarkets and all the entertainment at close hand. The house is not a s big we hoped for but gives us more space we had in Holland and even has a small garden in front and behind the house. We need only to clean a little and maybe a bit of renovation but that’s all, it was between all the choices we had the best we could find in a neighborhood that is not terrorized by gangs or noisy traffic of busses and others. The other choice was to take a bigger house for less money but 3 streets further away we had the ghetto with all kinds of problems that this brings. Anyhow we are happy that we found something similar as we had in Holland, although my 3rd bedroom is still an option, for the next time. At least we have space to do everything we need to do and a little bit more and most important of course the price is also good, even with one salary we can afford it.

Other good news is that my spouse had an invitation of a new job that pays 8.000 pesos more and gives us more freedom even later when we want to have more children. Most important of it is that it is a government job, which gives us the opportunities to do something with our projects we had in minds. Talking about children, my son is doing super fine and he is super happy to go to school and everything. Sometimes he asks about Holland but this is only that he does not understand that we are not going back and he still thinks that we are here on Holiday. Anyhow he is doing fine and we have again a good bound with each other.

Other things are that my Spanish becomes everyday a little bit better and that I already can talk more then just ordering “servesas” and “pappa fritas” … hahaha. Anyhow it is a long way before I can speak without thinking and count without counting back all the time to euros. I have still to get used to a lot of things and sometimes it is not easy especially when you know that you are the main course of a dinner at the moment you go to bed again. However we are doing fine till now and progressing slowly. Keep you informed and hopefully with photos.

Saludos mi amigos y amigas
RS