Morris Family in Mexico: Adjusting to Mexican Time

Throughout my life there have been several stories of my lack of patience. My mom tells a story of me coming home after the first day of my freshmen year of high school exasperated, saying, "I'll never pray for patience again! I had sit by the most annoying kid in every period!" And there is the classic story of me exclaiming to Ben in frustration, "I'm the most patient person in the world!" mere days before he finally asked me to date him. Just for the record: I didn't pray again for patience. But apparently the Lord thought I still needed to learn that character trait as he plopped me and my family right in the middle of life in Mexico.

Mexican life is where nothing ever works out in the time it's supposed to. Our visa delay was the perfect example of "Mexican time." How I didn't realize that situation would be indicative of our first weeks (or whole time) in Mexico, I'm not sure. I naively envisioned us arriving in Monterrey, having our second vehicle for my usage ready to be picked up, an appointment for us to get our residence card made, and a helper to assist us in getting new phones, a bank account, etc. As you can imagine, none of that has happened. In fact, we got the news that we'll probably have to fly our entire family to Mexico city (population: 21 million) in order to get our residence card finalized. And that has to be done 30 days from our entry into the country (April 17) or we have to reapply for our temporary visa. Of course, there are many things that we cannot do until we get our residence card; the most important of these is that we cannot get our container of goods from America. Which means that we have about four toys and 10 books to entertain my children for the next month. Perfect. We also cannot get a bank account or local cell phone. I can't stop rolling my eyes as I write this. So darn frustrating. Everything is so frustrating.

The good news is that the human resources department has realized how disorganized they have been in helping us transition to Monterrey and has asked Ben's help in making a sort of manual, or check list to help future expats move here. The bad new is: WE'RE THE GUINEA PIGS! We are the ones who have had nothing done in a timely manner.

I'm learning daily not to expect efficiency, nor perfection. I'm learning that the American way of pointing out clear expectations and then assuming they will be carried out in a relatively concise manner will never work here. Instead, time must be spent developing a relationship with the person helping you, and then hopefully they will work hard or find connections to help things work out. So instead of asking Ben to nag his HR rep because we still don't have a quote for a lease car for me to use, I asked him to butter her up. Desperate times call for cultural correctness. He spent the first five minutes of their meeting asking about her family, her Easter, etc...and she spent almost the whole afternoon working on our transition. Perhaps we are learning...

Last Thursday and Friday we had a two day cultural training for the whole family. It was from 9-5 and thankfully at our house. The company had someone come for the kids (well, Seth and Sam, Josh didn't really participate) and then someone for Ben and I. It was an enlightening experience learning all about Mexican history, culture, and also being given tips to help with culture shock. The boys did great with their teacher and even got to make a pinata. Our teacher was wonderful as well, but the ironic thing was, the cultural differences in how Mexicans deliver information compared to Americans, frustrated me the whole time. They are so indirect and it takes (in my opinion) way too long to explain anything. However, despite that frustration, it was a great chance for us to learn a lot of the technicalities of why we feel so out of place here. It's not just because we're the only white skin, blonde hair, blue eyed people around, it's because we view so many things differently: time, hierarchy, communication. It truly was fascinating. And the flip side of them not being in a hurry was that they would thoroughly cover any question we might have. For example, we mentioned we might like to go hiking. Well, we now know every hiking spot within a 100 miles radius. I asked for their favorite restaurants in the area, and we received a huge list. The Mexicans are such helpful people, if you don't need that help by a deadline.

Joshy's gloves for pinata making

Seth holding the base of the pinata

Sam's cutting paper for the decorations

Maria was such a great teacher for the boys and a great encouragement to me.

The finished product!

Please don't assume that we're terribly unhappy, or that we are regretting our decision to move here. I'm just airing frustrations. I know all these feelings and frustrations are part of the natural transition to another culture. It helps me to write about it, and I also look forward to reading this again in six months to a year as I have come to accept and even admire a lot of these cultural differences. I just hope that we'll have our container and a car by then.

Here are some pictures of the good times that we've been having as we enjoy this weather. I've been in touch with friends from home that have been getting poured on the past week.

The Mexicans are brilliant in providing play places at most big stores. I've never had my kids ask me to return to a furniture store again. And another note: when did America get rid of "ball tanks"?

Saturday afternoon was spent at the pool. It was wonderful.

It's such an awesome pool

Seth

Sam

Daddy tossing Sam

Seth's turn (caught Sam nose picking in the background)

Warming up on the hot ground

Josh is full of funny smiles these days

Cuddle bug on Daddy

The apartment has a small yard for football; it's not our back lot, but it will do!

Sunday was rainy and "cold" (65 degrees), so we filled up the hot tub on our patio. I don't anticipate us using it a ton, but when we do, it will be great!

Ben's first day back to work, the kids and I spent the afternoon at the park that's about a 7 minute walk away. It is a beautiful park with lots of different equipment, lots of trees and shade, and the most beautiful bird sounds all around you.