Category: Mexico

Running in Tampico

I have run in the city of Tampico before. This week I remembered something that I thought was humorous before, and it still is.

Each taxi that comes by they have to honk their horn to see if I want a ride. I guess I could understand that if I were standing on the street or walking. But, running?

One of the intersections I ran through this morning on my 3 mile run was interesting. The sewers were full from the heavy rains the night before. There were geysers coming out of the man-hole covers. During the night last night there was one man-hole cover right outside of my window that kept getting pushed up by the water and then falling back down and making that neat clanging and rolling around sound. At least, it is a neat sound in the middle of the day when you are not trying to sleep.

One other interesting thing about here is that the streets are concrete and not asphalt. That is not really fun to run on.

My luggage came home

Vacationing in Guadalajara. That is where the luggage was hiding out. I did not ask it to see if it went to check out the folkloric dancing or to see the cathedral. Guadalajara toysWherever it went, and why I will probably never know, but it decided to come join me in Tampico today. And, best of all, it was sober. That is always a plus when you are trying to keep your clothes on. You don’t want them to be drunk.

I am having some good meetings and accomplishing a lot here in Tampico. The majority of the group will leave Thursday morning, but my plane does not go back to Merida until Friday. I actually get a long layover in Mexico City. I know that is not what most people would want, but I am looking forward to going out and looking for shoes. I am hoping to find a shoe store near the airport. I should have about 3 hours to run around looking for shoes.

Vacationing in Mexico City

No, I am not vacationing there, but apparently my luggage is. I flew AeroCalifornia from Merida to Mexico last night. Then from Mexico to Tampico. I did not buy one ticket to get me from there to here. It was a couple hundred dollars cheaper to buy a round trip from Merida to Mexico and back. Then another round trip from Mexico to Tampico.

I was assured at the check in counter that my luggage would be transfered and that I would not need to claim it in Mexico. I had a feeling that it would not go well, but did not follow that up by checking in the baggage claim area in Mexico since that would have meant that I needed to leave the secure area and have to re-enter. I should have taken the time to do it though.

Fortunately I have arrived for the meeting a day early. There is nothing I have to be presentable for today. But it was also a great running day–cool and no responsibilities. But my shoes are in my suitcase.

The neat thing is that I am borrowing clothes from the missionary’s skinny teenage son and they fit. It is just that the look that fits a 17 year old kid does not look quite right on an almost 40 year old.

How old are you?

This week we worked with a very pleasant man named Felipe. Felipe was one of our Spanish-Maya translators for the trip. He and I built a pretty good relationship through the week.

He has 5 children. The oldest studies in a seminary in the same town we live in, which is 2 hours from the village where he grew up. I think he said the oldest boy is around 25. The baby is in his early teens.

Felipe loves the Lord and dedicated this week to the work. I don’t know if he has been a part of this medical team in the past. He certainly jumped right in like he knew what he was doing.

Yesterday we were riding in the back of a truck headed back to the hotel for the last time to pick up our stuff and leave town. Felipe was with us. I asked him how old he was. His answer was classic.

“Something over 50, I think. Maybe 51 or 52.”

Day 3

I was hoping to get new pictures and a bit of a podcast out. That probably won’t happen until the weekend. I have been having too much fun with real people to spend time on the Internet playing with media.

Yesterday we saw 150 (or so) patients. We have seen between 500 and 600 patients in the 3 days so far. We have exact numbers, but I have not seen those numbers yet. We have also been able to share the message of salvation with almost all of them. There have been 88 who have accepted the Lord as their Savior via the main evangelist in the group. That does not count those who have come to the Lord by way of the doctors and med students. I know of 7, but there may be many more.

We still have today and a half day tomorrow.

I have had a blast running the last week. I have been able to run twice a day since I have been here. The people on the trip are either mid-20’s medical students or health conscious doctors. There are several runners. I have gotten to run with different ones through the week. Previous to this week I have run only 4 miles out of the 700+ miles I have logged while running with someone else. This has been fun.