Going Home

(This story is best read from the beginning. Click here.)

One of the street vendors here, a camotero, pushes a cart with a wood fired oven. In it he roasts camotes (sweet potatoes) and platanos (bananas). Both are sprinkled with sugar before roasting and sweetened condensed milk is poured on before serving. It’s very rich and definitely better with a glass of milk. Every so often he opens a valve which releases some water into a pipe running through the coals to create steam. It sounds like the whistle from an old steam engine off in the distance.

We spent part of the afternoon yesterday with Geninne and Manuel and their two, very creative, boys. They have an incredible history and a story about how God can, and will, find you, anywhere, to bring you back home. Geninne is a freelance artist and Manuel is an architect/builder who actually designed her wedding dress. And she liked it! We fed tortillas to some of the wild and local ducks and Geninne showed us a little more of the hacienda than we had seen before including the 400+ year-old aqueduct that provided water to the hacienda and the old mill.

I finished my two weeks in Mexico and right now, we are flying back to Indiana. I’m not sure what we just ate but it wasn’t too bad. It was difficult leaving, as always but Ana is sitting next to me with her head on my shoulder, editing the story, so everything is ok. She will be with me for one week while we work on immigration and she looks for a wedding gown. For some reason she won’t let me go with her to look for a gown. She says she only needs a map, the Blazer and my credit card. Hmmm! Something about this sounds familiar. Perhaps it’s because I suggested I only needed her car and a map to explore Mexico City while she was working. I’m looking forward to this week but not to the eighth day.


The immigration process may start slower than I had hoped. We don’t have the copies of our marriage certificate yet and her sister mentioned today that Ana may need a background check performed. Nery’s took two weeks. Nothing I’ve read, or heard from the attorney, suggested that we needed one but we will be checking.


History
After returning to Indiana in October, we started talking more about travel plans and timeframes for the wedding. I’ve saved our online conversations and during the first week of October I told Ana that I felt she only had about six months to prepare for the wedding. We were married (civilly) seven months later. When I left Mexico I was ready to bring her to Indiana to show her around and to show her off. Thanksgiving was coming and I didn’t want her to miss it. She had never experienced Thanksgiving or any of its traditions. We worked through several optional schedules and decided that she would come just before Thanksgiving for a few days and I would return with her to Mexico for a few days.


Those seven weeks between proposing in Mexico and Thanksgiving took years to pass but the days we spent together only lasted minutes. I had big plans to decorate and cook and invite friends over to share the experience. I even bought a practice turkey; which never got cooked. I thank God for the work I have but because of the work schedule I had nothing prepared. We were fortunate enough have dinner with the Adams family where we sampled just about everything and listened to stories from Grandma. Ana left contentedly uncomfortable and better informed.


Ana reminded me that I left out a humorous detail about the family dinner last Sunday. I’ll have to remember to mention that next time.