Week#23 Constitution Day

 

While my farm built frame and stamina still allow me to roll confidently with 20 year olds in my BJJ classes, the truth of the following statement is undeniable: "Yea, I know that I am nothing: as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things: (Alma 26:12). A couple of weeks ago one of the senior Elders that we associate with here who is quite the joker wrote to our WhatsApp group chat telling us that half of his face had become paralyzed - he attributed it to eating too much spinach and even posted a picture of our cartoon friend Popeye. I thought he must be joking again. 

He and his wife were away for a couple of weeks to open a new development centre. We saw them at church on Sunday. Half of his face is paralyzed. One of the practical implications is that it's difficult to speak clearly and speaking is what he needs to do to be effective in his assignment as a missionary. The mission doctor gave him advice on how to treat it that was identical to what I received when I lost the hearing in my left ear last summer with a similar uncertain prognosis. My blessing was to regain the ability to hear the lower registers of my hearing in that ear that allow me to still sing confidently - a tender mercy.  When I am not singing I hear a ringing in that ear 24/7 - perhaps calling me to, "awake and arise"?  Our God will answer our prayers on this Elder's behalf.  We saw him and his wife this morning for a delicious breakfast of tamales- he was in good spirits and is receiving acupuncture treatments that have already helped. He reminded me that there must be opposition to all things that are good - in spite of his difficulty speaking, they opened the development centre with over 1000 people participating in the courses.  

Like what happened to this Elder and to me, I don't know how the smile on our bathroom bar of soap got there - it just appeared this past week and it still brings me joy each morning.  I hope to again see this Elder smile like our soap, but if not, I am confident that he will be blessed to measure he needs to accomplish his work while yet on this Earth. 

On Saturday we went to the Lomas de Soltello Tiaguis (open market). I found what I was looking for, black plastic-bag "pots" to plant strawberries in. The window of our bedroom has view of the top of the Big Bola Casino compound wall next door, according the casino's website they feature "máquinas tragamonedas - literally, "machines that swallow coins") and Bingo. The ledge is an arm's reach out of our window and receives enough sunlight to grow things. I expect the bottoms of the plastic bag "pots" to have enough friction stay in place when the earth shakes - there were two earthquakes at the same time this past week that were close enough to us that the shaking woke Sister Schlachter from a nap (4.5 and 4.9 in Morelos and Michoacán respectively). I took a bucket and went looking for some topsoil yesterday afternoon but didn't find any as every inch of ground seems to be covered with cement so instead I purchased some on Mercado Libre (Mexico's Amazon) along with 5 bare-root ever-bearing strawberry plants. They are both scheduled to arrive this coming week, hopefully by the fall we'll be eating "garden" strawberries again. Mercado Libre is Mexico' version of Amazon - Amazon works well here too but there were no strawberries nor affordable potting soil available.  

Something that fascinated me at the tianguis was a gal making nopal (cactus)-flavoured green tortillas by hand. Both Sister Schlachter and I make tortillas the same way as shown on the video link below.  I have seen Sister Schlachter manage up to four on the grill at once, all the while rolling raw masa into balls and pressing it in a continuous process. I am doing pretty good if I can cook three tortillas at once in that they have to be turned at just the right time to puff up and mine don't always do so which make them heavier and they tend to break more easily when you roll them up. This gal managed a whole lot more than four.  We bought some to eat at home.   

When it was time to roll at BJJ on Thursday, one of my companions was a 20ish purple belt that I expected to have only submissions on his mind - with that as the primer, my approach was to defend, defend, defend to make it to the 5 minute bell with all my limbs and neck still intact. I very much appreciated his control and he was very generous. He gave me some very helpful tips on how to break free from someone's full guard to pass and even gave me a legs demo to show me what he meant. The class is in Spanish but they mostly speak in street slang which I understand very little of. I am still a white belt with four stripes from my training in Quebec. The stripes fell off not long after BJJ started up again in Lethbridge, Alberta after the pandemic (March 2022). The class I go to here is for higher belts which is challenging because I don't benefit much from the verbal instruction but it is generally safer for me because these guys and gals have a lot more control than people just starting out who tend to flail around a lot under the premise that their opponent is really trying to kill them - and sometimes is can be that way. 

On my way home that night I stopped to introduce myself a street person that I almost always see at the 7-Eleven next door hunkering down for the night when I leave the dojo. His name is José. He's 10 years older than I am. He told me he is an engineer and that he invested his life savings in a project with Mexico's national petroleum company, PEMEX, and was swindled out of his money and he now lives on the street. He said he is still supported financially by some of the PEMEX officials who know what happened and that it shouldn't have. While I was talking to him a guy in a suit approached, briefly greeted him and gave him two small bottles of very expensive looking liquor, which he quickly tucked into his bedding. It could and might happen to any of us.

Today is Constitution Day in Mexico. Mexico's President has said he will be proposing changes to the constitution. One of them that has been in the news for last couple of weeks is that for those with formal jobs, they would retire with 100% of their full-time working salary. The opposition parties are supportive of this change but I think their support is political pandering as the proposal is not economically feasible in any country. The news this morning is that the president's changes that are to be made public today are to do away with all of the checks and balances in the current structure of Mexico's democracy to instead place all power in the popularly elected president - even the the courts could not interfere. 

He's made many changes in laws and policy direction in the past two years of his mandate toward this same goal but his party doesn't have sufficient numbers in Mexico's upper and lower chambers to push a constitutional change through - so this too is seen as political pandering to secure his party's win in the general elections in June. Currently in the constitution, Mexican presidents can only serve one term of six years. 

We stopped and chatted with the workmen working on the well across the street. They said they are doing a routine cleaning of the scoring inside the casing that they carry out every five years. The well is 280 meters deep with the water table at about 120 meters.