Traveling from Pomona, CA with a car loaded to the gills with clothing, household goods, two dogs plus Doug and myself was long and oh so very interesting! We were fortunate to visit with my brother, David, and sister-in-love, Evelyn, in Mesa, AZ. Evie cooked an old family favorite for us, Sopa de Fideo (comfort food!) Thank you Evelyn!
El Paso, Del Rio and Laredo, TX (Texas is HUGE!) then the border crossing,
Before crossing into Mexico, Ozzie somehow managed to eat all his – and Minnie´s- “Greenie” treats in one stretch of the drive. How he managed to do this without our noticing and without destroying their bag remains a mystery.
which turned out to be quite easy and relatively quick (2+ hrs to get paperwork completed—car and visas.) We loved the scenery and the blooming plants provided color and fodder for our imaginations (purple sage subject for later entry.) The roads were good in Mexico (we mainly used toll roads) and traffic was light. Having been advised by EVERYONE not to drive at night, we opted to spend the night in Matehuala at a wonderful resort called Las Palmas. We plan on taking visitors to this great place where Brad Pitt!!!! stayed while making the movieThe Mexican. After a leisurely breakfast we departed for San Luis Potosi!
Welcomed by caretaker Alma and her son, Gustavo (Gus, pronounced “Goose”) we unloaded the car, let the dogs run and began unpacking. Gus accompanied us to the Walmart nearest us, which turned out to be not a Walmart, but a Mexican store Bodega Aurrera where we proceeded to buy lamps, cleaning and laundry supplies, dog food, drinking water, etc. etc. etc. With the trunk filled and half of the back seat, we started the car. Click. Okay, we TRIED to start the car. A kind stranger found battery cables and a car capable of giving us a start, and we were once again on our way. Gus asked if we wanted to go through the village/suburb where we live to get familiarized with it, and we agreed.
While driving through the business district, the car died again. Kaput! Doug pulled over into an available parking space and we pondered what to do. Just at that moment, Gus cried out “Mi Papa!!” as a man on a motorcycle drove by. He jumped out of the car and whistled for his Dad, who is a mechanic! The battery was deader than a doornail. Finally Joel (pronounced “ho el”) took the battery out of their van in order to get our Corolla back to the house. He was able to get us a new battery the next day.
Two thousand miles driven on a battery that was near death! And it died just as the person most capable of helping us randomly drove past! If Doug and I did not already know that God had called us to this place, the timing of the failure of the battery and Joel’s ready assistance would have made us sure of our call.Truly a miracle (MILAGRO!) We took Alma, Joel, Gus(12), Zabde(8), and Elias (5) to dinner on us. What a first night! God is Good! All the time!
Capital of the Mexican State of the same name, San Luis Potosi counts over a million residents in the metro area and has an elevation of 6000 feet
Although we’re only going a little farther than from our home in Pomona, CA to Kansas City, there’s so much to do to prepare for our move to San Luis Potosi. So many complicating decisions when you’re leaving the country – enter Mexico with the readily issued Tourist Visa or go all out now for the temporary resident FM 3 visa? How make sure we receive important surface mail? How much to take when movers charge at least twice as much when it’s an “international” move?
Some of the anxiety, no a lot actually, was relieved by finding renters of our house who need to use our furniture and housewares. A young Samoan couple newly arrived for an M.A. at Claremont seminary will move into a fully furnished house. With another Claremont student occupying the little house in back, the rental arrangement appears ideal for all of us.
Kate’s cousin has volunteered to be our L.A. “angel” who will send packages of our mail to us. And a Congregational layman in Guadalajara, a Mexican customs agent, has advised us to wait on the resident visa until after we arrive. So now we can deal with questions like how to keep up on U.S. news – and the end of the baseball season while out of the country. After relying in Mexico on internet subscriptions to keep up on U.S. and international news, our daughters just may be impressed.
Although we keep coming up against the complications of a cross border move – like the fact our mail cannot be forwarded – we have been reminded again and again of just how close we already are to Mexico and how many of our neighbors here have ties to people there. No one we’ve met has had a discouraging word to say about the place we’re moving to.
At the doctor’s office recently, a stranger heard me tell a friend we’ll be living in San Luis Potosi. “Oh, you’ll love it there” an Anglo man in his forties interrupted. “My wife’s family lives there”. Our gardener enjoyed telling us he used to work with his grandfather in the city of less than a million in central Mexico.
Even in Kansas, with fewer Mexican-Americans than in our L.A. area, we’ve met people with connections to San Luis Potosi. When Kate officiated at her sister’s wedding in June, Jeanne’s friends in charge of decorating the church nearly exulted in recalling their experience of Mexico. “My late husband was from San Luis Potosi and we used to go almost every summer” the friend declared. Her daughter interjected, “We haven’t been for a few years and I really miss going”.
After our week in July of sampling some of the unusual and delicious Potosina regional cooking, marveling at the beauty of the old downtown and meeting some wonderful people, we are excited to return to San Luis Potosi in mid October. News of how we make it there with two dogs, a cat and all we consider helpful for our two year assignment will be featured in the blog post after our arrival.
On our 1700 mile plus drive to San Luis Potosi, Doug will enjoy singing – Kate hopes it will be brief – the first Spanish song he learned a few years ago that ends with the verse,
“Yo, ya me voy, ya me voy
Por que no soy de aqui (two lines sung twice)
Mis amores son de lejos,
Son de muy lejos de aqui,
Mis amores son de lejos,
Son de San Luis Potosi.”
This song “Yo ya me voy” is one of the Mexican folk songs on the superb Folkways album “Traditional Songs of Mexico” (FW 8769) issued with notes and English translation of all the songs.
“Now I will go away, I will go,
Because I don’t belong here.
My loves are far away from here,
They are in San Luis Potosi.”
NOTE: To listen to a sampling of “Yo, ya me voy” and other Mexican folk songs on this fine Folkways album go to:
Aug 3
This gallery contains 18 photos.
The photos below were taken two weeks ago during our first visit to San Luis Potosi, capital of the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The President of the Roundtable (“Mesa Conjunta”) of the Disciples of Christ and Congregational Churches, Rev. Manuel Tovar Ruiz, wanted us to meet and be interviewed by his Board during […]
Erasing Borders 