Another Wonderful Week!

It’s been another wonderful week here in Puebla!

To start, let’s talk about food. Carmena—our pint-sized host and full-sized saint—makes her own yogurt/kefir. From scratch.With love. Every. Single. Morning. Pair that with a cup of Nescafe and we are set for the day!

This week, one of the most spiritual moments came not in church, but at the kitchen table.  Watching Carmena lovingly prepare our turkey sandwiches warmed our hearts. It’s hard to articulate the care she took to wrap our sandwiches in napkins for our hike to the pyramids.  We’re learning: even the simplest food can be prayer when it’s wrapped in kindness and handed to you with joy.

Also, Carmena has offered to teach us how to cook traditional Pueblan dishes once we move into our apartment, and she’s already promised chile seeds and cuttings from her garden—blessings to help us grow our own little garden on the balcony.

At the end of the day, when we return to Carmena’s warm kitchen and big-hearted presence, she won’t let us clear a plate or fill our own water glass. She wants to hear about our day, correct our Spanish, and sendus to bed feeling fed and loved. We feel like elementary school kids again!

She may be hunched over with age, but this abuelita stands tall in spirit. Carmena is the embodiment of what this journey is teaching us: hospitality is holiness, and the sacred often shows up in slippers, holding a plate of deliciousness!

Carmena doesn’t just nourish bodies—she feeds souls. Her home is filled with rosaries and bead kits. In this photo she is modeling a necklace she made for herself. She’s like a one-woman factory, threading love and light into every string. If she isn’t cooking, she is beading!

BTW, there is a large living room downstairs with 5 couches - that could easily seat 15 people-- but that room is off limits.  Instead we sit on the floor in a tiny alcove filled with her crafts.  This is also where we sit to watch a Spanish version of Wheel of Fortune together on an old RCA tv! Carmena’s house features very-worn electric blue carpet straight out of the 1970s—it’s bold, unapologetic, and somehow perfect! The whole place feels like a cross between my childhood home in Fresno, California, and a classic Mexican casa. It’s warm, welcoming, and filled with lots of memorabilia.Every wall and shelf carries her family’s legacy—from vibrant artwork painted by her adult children to the lovingly-preserved pipe and tobacco collection of her late husband.

 

Also, Pat and I live in the house like dormmates. She put us in separate rooms (with twin beds) because she thought we were brother and sister!

Carmena’s twin granddaughters are both law students studying human rights—and they are fluent in English. They’ve become our honorary tutors, patiently helping us wrangle Spanish verbs and decipher slang.

We signed a lease for our apartment which required us to hire an attorney for the official documents.  (It’s a Mexico thing)! We “moved in”—with nothing but hope. (Still no luggage!) 

Our studies at the Spanish Institute continue until the end of August, but our little empty apartment is waiting to become a home.  This weekend we are excited to go shopping at Ikea!

Our Spanish classes are in an old ex-convent (their word,not ours). The classrooms were once nuns’ cells—simple, small, sacred. It’s a little warm, a little crowded, and filled with lots of enthusiastic learners! Students are from all over the world (Japan, France, Sweden, Germany and more) and many are multi-linguists. On our first day, the program director greeted us with this: “Put away your political correctness. There is none in Mexico.” And honestly, there’s something freeing about that! We’re trading performative niceties for genuine connection - in Espanol! Every day includes five hours of intensive classroom study and an afternoon tour of local holy and historical sites with our Spanish-speaking-only guide. We’re learning vocabulary and the area, and usually clock about 10,000-12,000 steps a day.  

Today I toured a grocery store and was put to the test to identify Spanish words and items in the grocery store. Talk about a brain workout!  Another day, Pat had a private tour of the Rosary Chapel—guided by monks!

Puebla is a sacred mess of noise and color—roaming dogs, roving vendors, busses that defy reason at the stoplights. Also, we’ve learned the louder the dog, the better the security. The quiet ones are just decorative!

We’re living in a daily dance between first-world problems and third-world brilliance! The Wi-Fi is shared with the neighbors sometimes it reaches, sometimes it doesn’t. Water is delivered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only—miss it, and you’re literally running on empty. And if the skies are moody and overcast? Forget a hot shower. Solar panels don’t argue with clouds. It’s a humbling reminder: comfort is a privilege, resilience is a virtue, and gratitude grows quickest where the conveniences don’t.We’ve seen some interesting paradoxes firsthand:  High-techfingerprint scanners/timeclocks at work, and absolutely no plastic bags in stores... and government paperwork photocopied so many times it looks like cave art. Amazing foodie restaurants with incredible chefs and savory dishes… but NEVER any toiletpaper in the bathrooms.

Founded by Augustinian missionaries in 1553, We also toured the ex-convent of San Agustín. Built in 1553, this the oldest convent in the state. 

We had a day trip to

Teotihuacan.  This is another enormous Mexican archaeological complex near Puebla. Running down the middle of the site, which was once a flourishing pre-Columbian city, is the Avenue of the Dead. It links the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Pyramid of the Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun. The panoramic views were amazing. We were able to climb to the top of the luna pyramid!  

In case you are wondering.... where did that red paint come from - it is made from crushed bugs. Yep. That’s what the Aztecans used thousands of years ago to make paint and it’s still there today!

The most popular selling souvineer for children was the puma-sound whistle.  I must have jumped out of my skin at least a dozen times during our tour whenever I heard it   Then ine of the monks bought one for the 2 hour bus ride home.  Bless his heart! 

Fun fact:  this is the symbol of Pope Clementine who blssed the coffee.  The logo is on the door of our favorite coffee shop!

Puebla is already changing us—not just our language skills, but our hearts. We’re learning to find God in yogurt, grace in public restrooms,and laughter in our tounge-tied attempts at communicating in this country we now call home. Gracias for venturing with us!