Oaxaca and Oaxaca Street Children

I didn't leave Oaxaca after all. I'm not going to bother with the details. Let it suffice to say the greatest thing about having an independent income, and a skill thats in demand, is that I can for the first time in my life pick and choose how I spend my time. If it doesn't feel right, I won't do it.

Since I wanted to work with children, who would not get an education without assistance, my first item of business, when I decided to stay in Oaxaca, was to pay a visit to the Oaxaca Street Children organization. The organization was started by a Missouri couple, and people sponsor a child from kindergarden through their school years.

I'm teaching preschoolers for one hour a day. (Sherri Owens, if you are reading this blog entry, I don't know how you maintain the energy, by the end of the hour I'm exhausted.)

My FM-3 Independent needs to be renewed in October. I've heard so many stories about problems people have with Mexican immigration, although I haven't experienced any difficulties, I decided to get the correct information. I've hired a lawyer.

I didn't like my apartment. It was too dark. The advantage to a place with little sun coming through the windows is that it keeps cool. But, I'm a person who has lived my life in the north. I like and need a lot of light. My new bungalow is full of light. I live in the back of a garden. The family who own the property live in the front of the property. They are very nice people.

Erique, the son, is getting married in October, and I've been invited to the wedding. Erique is busy helping his mother run the family boutique. Madre Ruth is Oaxaca's Martha Stewart, only a much nicer person, and she has decorated my two bedroom garden apartment very nicely. Daughter Ruth is a pharmacist, who improved her English by spending five months in Victoria British Columbia. I've signed a one year lease. This will satisfy immigration. The rent is approximately $350 a month Canadian. I would have paid more, and was surprised at the M$4,000 rent, which was cheaper than any of the other apartments I looked at, and I didn't like any of the others.

I've enrolled in a Spanish grammar class, which takes up two hours of my day. I've been speaking Spanish using English grammar. So I've got a lot of bad habits to break.

Because I'm walking everywhere an hour and a half of my morning is spent walking from my bungalow/garden apartment to my Spanish school, to the Oaxaca street children organization and then home again.

The photographs are of my new apartment. It's two bedrooms - so to my friends - if you'd like to pay me a visit let me know.