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2/14/01 3PM Hotel de la Soledad, Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico

I just got of the phone with Lily. She is doing better emotionally but was having a sore throat and cough. Most of the kids are having mild flu symptoms. I think we brought it with us. Jeanette was also feeling bad so her father called a doctor who - are you ready for this? - came to the house with a little black bag! He looked at Lily too and gave her some medicine for the cough and stomach aches. She reports no diarrhea. She says she is feeling better.

Lily says her host mother is a very good cook and she is trying new foods, some of which she likes a lot. The mother also packs her a nice lunch every day for school. Lily says the house is one story and as she describes it, perhaps an apartment. Her and Jeanette each have a twin bed in one room. Her older sister sleeps in another room and her brother sleeps with her parents.

Speaking of medical care, one of our kids had an episode of shortness of breath and numb hands and was taken to the hospital ER. She was fine, the problem was that she wasn't eating or drinking enough and was exercising strenuously at PE at 6500 ft. I suspect she might have been hyperventilating a bit due to the perceived breathing problem, but then I wasn't there. Anyway, she is fine now after some rest and a pizza at Erika's. Please don't think it was your kid and get worried. I already sent a separate message to the parents. The amazing part of this incident was the bill. 10 pesos. That's about a dime in US currency. Why bother charging anything at all? It costs more than a dime administratively to account for the dime. Perhaps it is to discourage frivolous use of the national health system. Just imagine the situation reversed, with a sick Mexican child taken to the most advanced health care system in the world, to one of our emergency rooms. First of all as a Mexican national without insurance she might have trouble being admitted. Second of all the bill would break the poor family. This is something to consider when their kids come to see us. We may need to get some temporary insurance for them. I'm sure their parents will be bewildered by the concept. We're all like the frog that's in the pot of water being slowly boiled. Our health care system has become so horrible but we don't hop out of the pot because it has deteriorated in bits and pieces. It's only when you get outside the system that you realize you are being boiled alive.

One peculiar custom that Lily reports and confirms with the other children is toilet paper procedure. After use, it is NOT put in the toilet but placed in a basket, which is emptied daily. Now there is a chore the kids could fight over. If Jeanette comes to stay with us we definitely want to do some retraining in that area.

Lily says the other Healdsburg kids are holding up better, nobody is openly crying any more. The local kids are swarming on them less. I asked her about the uniform idea and she declined. To my surprise, she does not want to wear the uniform. Oh well, I thought it was a good idea. I still think next year's kids should wear them.

Lily says she is the only one who wears a seat belt when they drive. She doesn't mind their curiosity; the driving here scares her. Good girl. I can only imagine what bizarre dreams these kids are having now. Life must seem like they stepped into a Felini movie. Lily says she is starting to dream in Spanish. She says her Spanish is getting much better and her confidence is stronger. She is also starting to appreciate the cultural exposure. Even enjoying it.

One thing none of us has encountered is any kind of public disorder. There is no public drinking or intoxication. No homeless sleeping on the streets. No rowdy groups of young men. We are trying to take up the slack somewhat with our margarita meetings but when we are loud and drunk we are also alone. The streets pretty much shut down at 10 PM.

Things start up again at 5:30 or so with traffic and the ever-present serenade of car horns. Drivers honk when they approach a pedestrian. They honk when they pass another car. They honk to say hello and when traffic gridlocks, which is about every hour on the hour. Sometimes they honk just to say, "By golly, life is grand and I want to express my zest for life though my car's horn". Some are no doubt frustrated musicians. For them, the simple car horn is too limiting. These clever drivers have wired their car alarm to sound on command.

There are numerous flavors of police on the street and most of them seem to be the beneficiaries of a jobs program. They stand at seemingly random intersections and wave their arms and blow their whistles and are completely ignored. Fortunately, they are smart enough to stand out of the street. They also tend to work where there are already traffic signals. The traffic will stop for a red light and then the policeman will blow his whistle and command the motionless traffic to stop. Oh well, it's a living.

There are some other cops who ride around standing in the bed of a police pick-up. They carry M-16s and wear black uniforms with jack boots. I would not mess with them. The day before I was walking down the street and encountered about 30 of these guys with helmets and shields out. They had put up a chain link fence barricade to seal off both ends of the block. The state legislature was in session in one of the buildings there and a small crowd of demonstrators was outside the fence talking into a PA system that was affixed to the roof of a truck. The whole scene was orderly and non-threatening. This went on for the whole day. Nobody seemed interested. There was a TV camera crew there but they seemed bored.

For those of you who are impressed by my ability to get these reports to you, don't be. There are numerous storefronts that have set up a group of computers and a dial-up connection and rent time. They also have the Microsoft Office suite installed. Internet access is slow and unpredictable, but then phone service is a little squirrelly too. The best procedure I've found is if your connection craps out just go to another "ciber café". They are common, just look for a sign that says "Internet". The price varies from 10 pesos to 25 pesos per hour. Current exchange rate is about 9.6 pesos per dollar so it's pretty cheap.

I'm waiting for the software and cable to come from Lorraine so I can transfer the digital pictures in the camera's memory cards to my laptop. I will then edit them and compress them and send them to our ISP's FTP site so Lorraine can put up a website. Hopefully she will put these reports on the site as well.

I tried to send Lorraine a FedEx anniversary / Valentines Day gift, along with 5 rolls of developed film for to develop and scan and put on the web site but the people here are not clued in to overnight delivery. When I ask package delivery store clerks or hotel staff about FedEx or overnight delivery they look at me like I was asking them to sprout wings and deliver it themselves. The best we could find through Begonia was 3 day delivery. So, our hopes for early pictures lie in the digital camera and Lorraine's delivery of needed software / hardware and Erika's fast Internet connection.

Stay tuned.

2/14/01 11 PM

I just got back from a nice dinner we were throwing for Erika to show our appreciation for taking care of our kids. Unfortunately Erika was too busy taking care of our kids to eat. She showed up an hour late with two of our kids in tow. One child was having fever and abdominal pains so she was brought to the restaurant to spend the night with her mom. She had been seen by a doctor who recommended close observation. That's what we chaperones are here for. The other kid got in a fight with one of our other kids and got the worst of it. He had a swollen knee and scraped wrist. He was talked to and returned to his host family. Again, please don't think they are your kids. The parents have been notified. If you weren't told it was your kid then it wasn't. Erika drove the kids where they had to go and went home for some needed rest. We all had a few drinks in her honor.

Lily called at about 6 PM from a party the kids were at to say she had a headache and that her head hurt when she moved it. Her throat and cough were much better however. She was calling from a phone booth. I told her to try to get a Tylenol but not take more than a couple a day.

Needless to say I was pretty distracted by Lily's problems during dinner so I probably wasn't very attentive to my date for the evening, Modesta. She and Lorenzo and Lorraine and I all share the same wedding day 14 years ago today. The group decided that Modesta and I would sit together and be each other's "dates".

--Bill Tomkovic