Foods of Merida, Part 1



Starbucks! We really try to avoid this place, it is as
expensive as in the states...but with less choices.
They have nice air conditioning and many foreigners
frequent it so we still go there.

MMMM Mcdonalds. We did this one time when we needed to remember home.
Tastes the same, even in Mexico! Can you tell we enjoyed it?

Burger King delivers! So do every other food establishment..
...always by motorcycle. Don't worry, we have only ordered pizza at the
house, but a Whopper Jr delivered to my door is quite tempting!

This is half of a very large Chipotle Bacon Crispy Chicken sandwich from
BBT Wings. A very American themed restaurant, a favorite to the locals.
We shared the sandwich and still brought some home for a second meal.

Our young friend Eva and I were preparing stuffed
cabbage, not so Mexican and a first for her! See, we
do cook at home.

One night we lost power for a very long time and had to make dinner by
candle light...not as romantic as it sounds. We were really hot because the
fans were not on..but we have a gas stove so I made nachos! And here is the
beginnings of guacamole. 

Mexican sushi! Yes this one is entirely breaded or "empinizado". 
At first sight this roll may look like sushi, but many of the ingredients
are very wrong. But we enjoyed it very much!

OK, OK....enough with the sushi!

Yummy Enchiladas with Mole.
 Prepared with love by a dear sister in the congregation.

Not sure what to call this. It was quite delicious! A German woman in
Celestun prepared these assorted dishes for us when we visited her recently.
She has been in Mexico over 25 years and is quite fascinating. Her cats
run the kitchen...but we still ate and enjoyed!



Cats in the kitchen...wild things really!



More kitties taking a nap. Guess where? ....the kitchen!

How could I forget...PASTOR! Yes, it is a very traditional style of

taco, the meat is marinated, then stacked on this upright spit...very

much like lamb for a gyro. In fact this method was first

introduced to Mexico by a Greek..but using pork of course.

Well, this little pastor taco stand is literally 2 blocks from our house and

one of the cheapest places around. Two tacos cost 14 pesos ($1) and

they will bring you extra tortillas for free, so you can make 1 or 2 more!

They pile the meat so high, you have to make more. What a deal!

And guess what? We have never gotten sick here. Just want to add

that point. And below you will see that we have gotten the other

friends from the hall to join us from time to time. They all love it!

Notice the red plastic chairs and Coca Cola tables??

We made a deal early on here in Merida that unless it was a special occasion

or the friends invited us...we would stick to dining out only at places with

these very chairs and tables. Silly? Not really, see this style of seating is an

 indicator that we can afford the menu! And we have never gone wrong since.

Fried fish anyone?

Yes, this is fried fish...I was almost horrified, but got over it.

It was quite delicious once we got past the carcass.

We spent the afternoon at a beach home of one of the friends, and the guys

went out to buy fish...this is what they returned with. Below is our

hungry group feasting!

The  Mexican friends laughed at us...this style of fish is normal to them.

We made fish tacos with the tortillas, salsa and lime!
"It's the best!" (say with an accent)

Not sure what all of these are called, but the round ones are Panuchos. Made with

turkey meat. These were a sampling of Yucatecan foods prepared for us after

touring a cenote.

Ok, that's all the food photos we have for now. As you can see, we are not going hungry.

Maya Bethel



Watch Tower (literally "lookout tower")

We live in Mayan country here on the Yucatan. That is partly why it has been said that the culture here is a bit different than the rest of Mexico. Mayans primarily live only on the Yucatan, so this is the ideal location for translation offices. The Mexico Branch set up translation offices here in Merida a few years ago. We have visited these offices twice now since we arrived in January. The first time we were given a tour and were guests for the noon meal. We sat at the table with Manuel and Wendy, who are in our congregation, learning English and doing quite well, and a couple from the Mexican Sign Language congregation that shares our Kingdom Hall and speaks almost no English. What fun we had trying to discuss the meal. We had Panuchos and Salbutes, two traditional Yucatecan foods, much like local tacos, but with different ingredients. This was a very nice privilege for us. Our friend Coral was visiting both times we visited, and another friend Wendy the second time.

We ate it all! Nothing left.

This extension of the Mexico Branch operates like any other Bethel, just smaller. There are 25 Bethelites here on site living and working to translate literature into Maya for this large population. They experience great challenges in this work. We struggled to completely understand how it is done, but it seems that much correspondence comes from Puerto Rico or Mexico City in Spanish to be translated into Maya, and other correspondence from New York in English. This may be time sensitive material that cannot be translated first into Spanish, that is why several of these brothers here in Merida are learning English to do just such work. What a fine effort they display! During our second visit, a team of local brothers from Maya congregations all over the Yucatan were on site to review some recently translated work. They were to see if the translators had done well in there interpretations of thoughts and phrases.

Example of the many challenges

See, Maya has fewer words than either English or Spanish so many challenges arise. Like the word "marriage" in English is translated into Spanish as "casarse", but there is no word like this in Maya, rather the idea must be conveyed using several or many words, "Ts'o'okol beel", in Spanish these words translate to "el fin de su camino".. translated back to English they mean "the end of his road". I know, that one seems bias...here is one more, "finger" in Spanish is "dedo", into Maya it becomes "Yaal k'ab", or literally "hijo de la mano", back into English it becomes "son of the hand", So there you have it, translation in a nutshell. Confusing huh? There is much work to be done.

We also learned that because the text grows in length when translated into Maya...many more words than in English, some ideas or thoughts must be condensed or cut out completely in order for the material to fit into the prearranged space. Like in our Examining the Scriptures Daily...if every word and idea were translated completely to full length, the booklet would become a thick book. They use MEPS here in this office so the composer must make the material fit into the same space as if it were in English.

Our tour group

 We have heard endless experiences of Maya speaking individuals who learned the truth in Spanish many years ago but it didn't reach their hearts and so they failed to make progress. Once the same life saving information was finally available in their mother tongue however, they made rapid progress. All this has happened in just the last 10 yrs! Similar offices are accomplishing this same work for over 47 other indigenous languages in Mexico alone.

Laundry Day!

Laundry day has meant different things for us at different times. In the states it meant sorting piles and loading machines, waiting, folding...etc, simple enough. Here in Mexico it now means something quite different. When we first arrived, we took happy advantage of the closest Lavanderia, where you drop off your bagged laundry, it is weighed and you pay per kilo for the "lovely laundry lady", as we will call her, to wash/dry/fold everything, ready the next day for pick up, snugly packed away in a clear plastic bag. This was a welcomed service for us as we were new to everything here and having someone else do all the laundry seemed like a dream! We became quite the laundry snobs and found ourselves complaining that we actually had to put away these pre-folded items once home...can you imagine, we should be ashamed of ourselves!

Oh how the tables have turned....see, we have since been endeavoring to find creative ways to pinch pesos here and there and laundry service came up on the chopping block. Mike was reluctant to let me do our laundry myself...he is quite good to me that way, but I insisted on giving it a try to save the money...the paid service adds up and I felt it was worth considering.

Typical Yucatecan laundry sink, right side has ridges in base

OK, so I am going to do our laundry..."what's the big deal?" you may ask. Well, we don't have a washing machine, did I forget to mention that? But don't worry, we have a typical Yucatecan laundry sink instead, much more authentic than Whirlpool.  Notice the built in wash board, those natives are really clever! Yes, I began the chore of soaking, scrubbing and wringing by hand each and every item of laundry...and guess what? I really enjoyed it. Our sink is located on the second floor, outside, in a shady and breezy part of the house. The roof where we hang clothes to dry is just a few steps away, very convenient. I had the time to devote to this money saving endeavor and after a short while became quite proficient and faster.

But let me mention one setback. When this process first began, Mike went to the Dinosusa, a local small grocery store a few blocks away, for some laundry soap. I had started to use some powder soap, but without much success. He returns with a cute bottle of sweet smelling liquid with only Spanish writing on the bottle. I began the process of hand washing, and for two full weeks used this product. At one point I ran out and sent him back for a second cute little bottle. As the second bottle ran low, I decided this was working well enough and I would like to fully commit to hand washing and buy a really big bottle of detergent. So on our next trip to Walmart we found ourselves in the laundry aisle, quite overwhelming may I add...many things look familiar, but who really knows. I turn to realize there is a whole other section of bottles to choose from and what do I see? The fabric softener aisle!!! Yes, it was then that we both realized the cute little bottles we originally started washing with were in fact FABRIC SOFTENER!! I almost screamed right there in the Walmart, we both laughed our heads off, and then I wondered how clean were our clothes really? Oh well! What are you gonna do? Lesson learned, stick to the big bottles and make sure they say the right stuff. Now we are much better at label reading. And we smell better too!

Laundry area, I put the tumbler
right in the sink now.

One day I was remembering an infomercial offering a portable laundry tumbler...to do laundry on your kitchen counter by hand, fill, tumble, still hand wring, but no more scrubbing of every garment. So I researched it an ordered one online to be sent to FL, we brought it back with us after our visit. I have since been "tumbling" the clothes in small batches, it saves a lot of time and elbow grease. I no longer use the wash board, but still do the washing upstairs by the laundry sink, it is a good place to make a mess with all the water. Hanging clothes to dry is something I have truly come to love. I hope I can always do this, where ever we live. The second story roof is perfect. Between the heat and the constant stiff breeze at that elevation, the clothes dry in no time and the breeze pulls on the clothes just enough to remove any wrinkles.

breezy roof top

We may get a washing machine one day...and if we do, I would not mind. As much as I enjoy the physical process, it is tiring in this heat and I could use the time on other things. But for now, I am embracing the experience.

A Typical Week

Many of you wonder what our routine is like here in Mexico, well, it varies somewhat, but here are the basics. Prepare yourself, it is not that exciting...

Our meetings at the Kingdom Hall are Tuesday at 7pm and Saturday at 4pm. Meetings for Field Service are held Tuesday through Friday from various homes at 8:30am. We used to meet at the Hall everyday, but it is currently being used for Elder School during the week. Service is from the Hall on Saturday and Sunday for our service group. There is no meeting for service on Monday, typical here, as well as in other parts of Central America.


Our lovely Kingdom Hall

The culture here is for the locals to observe some form of daily siesta. We don't know if there is a standard for this, it seems that it can range from going home to have a large meal with your family midday to hanging out in the park with your sweetheart on your break from work. Some businesses close from 2pm-4pm, or even longer, reopening until late into the evening. We find that it is difficult to preach during this time, at least from door to door. Not only is this the hottest part of the day, but householders feel this is a special time to be home with their families and we try hard to respect that.

So service starts a bit earlier, 8:30 as I mentioned, and may stop as early as 11am depending on the day. We go in the ministry Tuesday through Sunday usually, sometimes off on Thursdays. Our schedule is ever changing according to the needs of the students we have. But that is roughly the routine. We have enjoyed evening work, after 6pm when it is much cooler. During this time we may make return visits on interested ones at there homes, or walk up and down Montejo, a popular avenue for walking, searching for foreigners or anyone else who speaks English. We always keep some material in Spanish and Mayan with us so we can be prepared to share the good news with anyone. Two young students come over two nights of the week for dinner and studies, this is a highlight for us. I will write more about them soon. Mondays and sometimes Thursdays are laundry days...that is another story, I will post about that soon too.. fun, fun!

We may go grocery shopping any day that it seems convenient, sometimes after service if we end up near the Walmart or Chedrauri (local chain of food store, the name is not Mexican, Lebanese I think). Or we will walk from our house to one of these stores, 25 minutes walking, good exercise...lots of sweat! Usually we catch a taxi home because of too many items to carry. The taxi costs 20-30 pesos depending on how far out of the way the driver feels like taking us to rack up the tab, but really the difference is nothing when you convert that. The cost is $1.40 -$2.10...we try not to argue over $.50. We find it interesting that the drivers keep trying to trick us, we know where we live, do they think this is the first time we have ever taken a taxi home and have no idea what it should cost. We keep reminding ourselves that we stand out and unfortunately at times are a target for taking advantage. Overall, this is rare and we do not feel taken advantage of very often. We hope that as our Spanish improves, these things will get a bit easier.

So that is our basic routine, we do take time for recreation if the opportunity arises. But primarily we try to stay focused on service and having balance with our rest. We do not want the heat to get the better of us, so far so good!




Portable fans are our friend!

Staying out of the heat is kind of a dream here, seldom a reality. Getting home may not mean cooling off. See, we don't have air conditioning in the house, only in the bedroom and we only use that at night if we absolutely have to, electric is very costly here. So we find that laying in a hammock, after taking a long cold shower, with a fan blowing directly on you is the closest thing to staying out of the heat. And it is usually so effective at cooling us down that we find ourselves needing to turn off the fan! (Gasp!) We may take several cold showers in one day, I think my record was 5, but that is not typical. As I write this, we are experiencing one of the hottest days so far, the forecast said high of 100, but it has turned out slightly cooler with a high of 95 and a "feels like" 98. You gotta love the Weather Channel. Currently our indoor temperature is 89 (don't laugh Coral), much cooler than yesterday which was 92 indoors. ( I don't have an obsession or anything, just a need to know) These temps may sound shockingly warm, but we have adjusted quite well to not having ac, and not having a car has helped us adjust. See we walk a whole lot, and I really don't know how to explain it, but walking in this heat changes a person. You haven't been truly hot and sweaty until you realize you are sweating from every square inch, yes, every one of them...and then you lift your arm to fan yourself and your elbow drips! Did you know elbows sweat...ours do. (hence the 5 showers in one day) Is this too much information?...too graphic? So coming home to the shower/hammock/fan scenario is quite refreshing.  And for those of you who may be inclined to feel sorry for us or think we are crazy or both...please don't worry about us, we are just fine, and enjoying every minute of this sweaty adventure!


my obsession! that's 90 indoor

Mike "chillin", literally



Floor fan, our first choice! Brings up the cooler air from below.