criplomats

We were off work on Monday for Labor Day, and John took me cycling in New Mexico – it was great! We went almost 18 miles, and saw ostriches, boer goats, longhorns and horses along the way. It was great to be outside! Afterward, we had a great Mexican breakfast, stopped at Barnes and Noble and came back to Juarez. (Tuesday’s massage felt especially good!)

On the social side this week, we went to dinner Thursday night with the regional medical officer who was visiting the Consulate. Friday night we went to a dinner party at our neighbors’ house. Lara made a yummy seafood pasta, using salmon her dad in Alaska caught.

We had two parties yesterday – a going away party for a co-worker in the afternoon. Last night we hung out with our Mexican neighbors who were having a cookout – it was a beautiful night outside.

On the work side, I did a prison visit on Wednesday to see three Americans.

On Friday, I went with a father who had flown in from the States because his son was murdered here. Between Friday night and Saturday afternoon, I spent a lot of time with him (along with one of our fabulous local staff employees). We took him to identify the body, meet with detectives, sign a million things, pick out caskets, make arrangements for the body, etc. Yesterday, our last stop was the funeral home for him to say goodbye to his son – a very, very sad time. It was an intense experience, but good in that we felt we were really helping someone who needed it.

Busy and fun week, with several fun outings.

Last Sunday, John took me to see “Inglourious Basterds,” which I really, really liked – despite the violence, it was just a lot of fun.

Monday after work we had a professional development event with an immigration attorney – yawn. He was fairly entertaining, but really liked to hear himself talk way too much. He talked a lot about immigration reform, which makes me cringe because I don’t like the direction most of that debate is heading.

Tuesday was massage night at home (yeah!), then Wednesday night we watched Bill Maher’s “Religuous,” which was just great.

Thursday we had book club at our house to discuss “Statecraft” by Dennis Ross. Good book and good discussion.

Friday, the immigrant visa section was busy, so I went down to adjudicate in the afternoon – I hadn’t done it in a while, so I was a bit rusty, but it was fun. After work, we had an employee recreation event to watch a sort of intramural basketball game – fun to relax with a beer in good weather. After that, John and I met Teresa and Michael at Corralito’s to welcome a new couple to post. They were really nice and interesting – they were both in the Peace Corps,then worked for NGOs after that. After dinner, we sat outside at Michael and Teresa’s to catch up on our gossip.

Yesterday, John took a day off from cycling and we went to Las Cruces for our typical farmers’ market, bookstore and Mexican food tour. I bought some great bread at a bakery – very yummy. Then we decided to head up the road to Hatch for their annual chile festival – talk about a lot of people! It was fun, snaking through the long lines of traffic through this tiny town, and seeing all of the incredible chile ristras hanging outside. The smell of roasting chiles was everywhere. We walked around a bit, then came on home. John grilled a couple of steaks and we watched a “Law and Order” on television.

A very good week, all in all!

With Martha at the opening of our new Consulate gym

I went to the juvenile detention center this week to visit our Americans detained there. The group of 6 included two kids in for homicide. I just never thought that I’d have a job where I’m chatting it up across a small desk with folks who have killed other people. Very odd.

On the feel good side of the coin, I also met a young kid there who has been given a chance to turn his life around. I guess that the authorities in charge of the detention center recognized his athletic talent, and got him hooked up with the professional soccer team here in Juarez. Now he’s training with them and has an offer to play for their divison two league when he is released. I asked him if he realized how lucky he was and he just grinned and said “This is my dream and I’m going to take advantage of it.”

John got a new toy this week: a new carbon bike – he loves it! We went over to El Paso on Wednesday night to pick it up, then went for a nice dinner at Geske’s. He took it out for a long ride Saturday morning while I was at work. He just got in today (Sunday) from another ride.

The work week was pretty busy. I was happy to get a recycling program approved and funds committed, so I spent a  lot of time picking out trash cans to put around the Consulate.

We had a great speaker at work this week, a woman named Perla Bustamante, who won a gold medal in running (and set a world record) at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008 (and at the age of 44!). She’s from Juarez and was a very dynamic and inspirational speaker. After her talk, she stayed to cut the ribbon on our new Consulate gym.

Friday night, John and I went to a baseball game in El Paso with a bunch of folks from work – it was a beautiful night and reminded me of many evenings spent in Little Rock watching the Travs.

With souvenir Menonite cheese

On Wednesday, I headed down to a small town about three hours from here to do a passport outreach, where the local American residents could come in and apply for their passports. I went with four local staff and another officer. It was fun but a lot of work! We took almost three hundred applications during the two days we were there, which is pretty incredible.

It’s an interesting area because there are two Mormon communities outside of Nuevo Casas Grandes – one is polygamist while the other is not. We would have the family of one man in front of us one minute, with his other family a bit later. Colonia LeBaron, the polygamist colony, had a terrible tragedy a month or so ago, when two of their members were assasinated by the narcos in retalition for them speaking out against the narcos (after the narcos kidnapped another family member). There are also relatives of Mitt Romney down there (one was also kidnapped and released not too long ago).

This trip was also a valuable lesson for me. I didn’t realize that before we could start our work, I would need to meet with the mayor (“I’m sorry Mr. Mayor, but I can’t spend the afternoon siteseeing with you, but what a kind offer!”) and that I would be beseiged by press and interview requests. It’s a very small town!

The rest of the week was low-key – John and I had dinner at Los Bichis Monday night after work, then massage night on Tuesday.

Saturday morning, John broke his record by riding 50 miles on his bike – fanastic! He’s back at it this morning as I write.

We watched several movies this weekend, including “Babel,” “Waltz with Bashir” and “Doubt” – all good.

It was a good but busy week at work. I finished up duty Wednesday morning and am able to return to my regular schedule. I had a couple of disturbing calls on Sunday and spent some time talking to Americans who were having problems in Mexico. Hopefully, they will have good outcomes. The violence here continues – I think Juarez is on track to meet or exceed last year’s number of homicides, despite an increased military presence here. It’s depressing.

On the upside, I had a few good social outings. John took me out for a nice dinner on Wednesday to celebrate the end of duty week. I went out with some of the girls from local staff on Thursday night for drinks after work. They are so funny, cute and smart – we laughed a lot. John and I spent Tuesday night down at Michael and Teresa’s house yakking – they’re always fun, and we got to play with their puppy. Then last night, we went to a birthday party for our neighbor Lara across the street that was a lot of fun.

Wednesday was an admin day, so we had some meetings in the morning, then I went to do prison visits in the afternoon – always interesting!

We watched a few movies this week – “O Jerusalem,” “Madagascar 2” and “About Schmidt” – I had seen “About Schmidt” when it first came out, but we had been wanting to see it again – so funny.

John’s off cycling this morning – he’s having such a good time with it. He had his personal best of 45 miles yesterday – bravo!