Category: Mexico

Merry Christmas Everyone

Thanks for sticking with me each day. According to my logs, there are lots of people who read the blog with only a very small percentage who leave comments. Thanks to everyone who stops by.

I started the blog in February 2006. So this is my first Christmas with the blog.

I got some shirts and a wallet. We had a good time this morning with the family. Later today we are going to have our traditional Christmas dinner. We figure if you do it at least 2 years in a row, then it is tradition. Last year we had steak and shrimp. We are doing the same thing this year, so it is now officially tradition.

We also have a cold front coming through. The high is only supposed to be 84 today. Though it is not quite a white Christmas, it is cooler than the last several days which have been in the low 90s.

Merry Christmas!

Ivanchuk defeats Bruzón

In our big chess tournament this week we had a very exciting final set of games. Jaan Ehlvest (ranked 138 in the world) was unable to defeat Lázaro Bruzón (ranked 58th) in the semi-finals. Interestingly, Bruzón is 20 years younger than Ehlvest, I was pulling for Mr. Ehlvest for a couple of reasons. He plays as an American, though he is from Estonia originally. And, I bought his book from him this week. So he instantly became my favorite player.

It was pretty obvious though, that even if Jaan Ehlvest had arrived at the final games that Ivanchuk (ranked 7th) would likely have won. Ivanchuk seems to be on top of his game. He arrived here fresh off of a win at the Cuban Capablanca tournament. I don’t know how big of a deal that tournament is in the rest of the world, but here in Yucatán it seems to be well respected.

I won’t go into all the gory details as to how the games went down. You can go to the official website for that and watch the games played on the site. What I would like to share is the atmosphere.Ivanchuk

My son played in this tournament last year, but it was our first big tournament. We still were unsure how accessible these players are and what happens in the final moments. We chose not to stick around for the next to the last round early this afternoon. Hunger got the best of us and we returned home for food. The final round was to start at 5:00. I expected it to take several hours, so did not arrive until a bit after 7:00 to see the match. It ended up that the first round today was a draw and the afternoon round drew as well, but before I arrived.

When I got to the auditorium, there were people hanging around and there was a buzz. I knew that they ended up going into playoff games. The first would start at 8:00. They each get 15 minutes on the clock. Ivanchuk played Black in the first round of the playoff. When they each had just a few seconds left on the clock they agreed upon a draw.

The second playoff game had Ivanchuk in command of the position and the clock, but Bruzón had definitive control of the material (value of pieces left on the board). I saw a line of play that would have evened up the game material wise, but Ivanchuk took a different route. He had several minutes left and Bruzón had just a couple. The ending was so dramatic and quick, I really don’t know how much final time was left.Jaan Ehlvest

Ivanchuk made a move with his Queen that caused Bruzón to think long and hard. Finally Bruzón extended his hand and surrendered to Ivanchuk. Ivanchuk shook hands and jumped up and pumped his fists in the air. It was the first time I saw him smile all week. The auditorium of about 250 people gave a standing ovation.

Ivanchuk ran out the door of the auditorium and I figured that would be the last we would see of him until the awards ceremony tomorrow. Instead he was running out to see his wife. I did not know she was here and never saw her. I just saw a press release that said she was there with us tonight and that she was waiting outside the auditorium.

He stuck around for a long time and signed books, posters, hats and just about anything else that people put in front of him. He seemed pretty personable, though I would have never guessed that from the rest of the week.

I also got Jaan Ehlvest to sign the book I bought from him yesterday. Guil Russek, a Mexican Grand Master signed a book that I have from him as well.

¡Feliz Navidad!

Sunday night we were at a local church’s Christmas program. The kids sang. The preacher preached. You know, the normal stuff.

As an aside about the preacher’s preaching, we were told it would be a short message. He preached for 50 minutes. I wonder what a normal or long message from him would be?

At the end we sang the ever popular Spanish Christmas song ¡Feliz Navidad!. You know the one:

¡Feliz Navidad! ¡Feliz Navidad!
¡Feliz Navidad! a something, something, a something dad.

Yes, that one. The second part in English says:

I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas!
From the bottom of my heart!

Except, instead of “from the bottom of my heart” we had the words written out, “from the button of my heart.” I am not sure where the heart button is, but it is probably somewhere close to the belly button.

“I’m Never Right”

I got this in email the other day. It is from New Tribes Mission and was written by Dena McMaster.

She stood at the edge of the crowd, appearing remote and cold. The others chatted merrily while they worked. Some were pounding grain; others were rubbing peanuts between two stones to make a delicious thick chunky peanut butter called tigamungo for the sauce.

The women glanced at the pale stranger from time to time but did not speak. They were waiting for the proper greeting from her. In their culture, the newcomer must speak first.

As she stood there seemingly aloof from all the activity, no one could see the frightened little girl that hid inside. The girl cried out, “I can’t talk to them! They always laugh! I never say anything right! I never know what to do! I’m never right!”

Finally, overcoming the fears and self degradation she called out hesitantly “Damba, Damba, Saakilibaa,” the proper tribal greeting, calling out the last names of the women present.

The women laughed and the little girl inside the cool, detached woman cringed. Outwardly she tried to smile. But she was crushed and the little girl inside began the litany of depreciation once again.

But much to her surprise one of the women approached her. “I am a Saakilibaa,” she said, “you are in my family.” The women were delighted because she tried to greet them.

They began talking animatedly. But they wanted her to do it right. So they began shouting their names back and forth in the proper Malinke way. They urged her to shout out their names. In Malinke culture the louder you greet someone the more honored they are.

But she thought, “I was brought up to never raise my voice. I can’t do this.”

Determined however to learn culture and language and to be accepted, she raised her voice and shouted with all her might, “Damba, Damba, Saakilibaa.”

Once again the women laughed. But this time she knew that they were laughing in delight at how hard she tried to be a good Malinke.

Pray for missionaries as they struggle to learn the often very difficult tribal language and culture, which is so very different from our comfortable “home culture.” Missionaries aren’t different from you. They have the same fears you do and need your prayers to bring the Gospel message to a lost and dying world.

And my cultural frustrations include people never arriving on time and businesses not making copies when they say they will.

The festivities continue

This evening we took the kids to the house of some missionary friends to play while we went to eat.

After dropping them off we went to get my license back from the restaurant in the morning. They had said I could pick it up at noon or so. When I got there, they had not made the copy of the license. The lady told me to come back tomorrow. The place is not terribly far from where we live, but the principle of the thing is that they said they would have a copy of it by then and I did not want to come back later (because I doubt they would have made the copy by the next day anyway).

This restaurant is in a mall. The manager sent one of the workers to make a copy, after I had given them the money to cover the copy of course. The worker returned in about 4 minutes with the news that the copy machine was not working. I was told to come back tomorrow. I then, somewhat animatedly, explained to the manager that I was not going to come back and that I wanted my license back. I told her that I found it hard to believe that in the 3rd largest mall in the whole country that there was not a single working copy place. I further explained to her my frustration at the fact that they nowhere post that I have to have a copy of the document to get my free meal, they just say I have to show proof of birth date. I would not return. And to think, they wanted me to leave my passport for them to copy.

This went on for quite some time. Finally she said that she would see what she could do. She left and returned in less than a minute with the copy. What did she do then that she could not have done 15 minutes before? I have no idea, but she just added to my belief that some people will only do what they feel they absolutely have to do.

We then headed south towards downtown. Along the way at the largest intersection in town the traffic stopped. It took quite some time to get through the intersection. The reason was that someone had hit a pedestrian. We did not see the car that hit her (at least it was not obvious), but she was bleeding from the head and had bystanders watching over her and directing traffic. After we made it through the intersection we saw police cars headed that direction.

We then got to the restaurant of choice. The reason it was chosen was because they typically have live music (of the classical variety) that is not too loud, but enjoyable. We have only ever been there on Sunday afternoons. Tonight they did not have any music. Presumably because it was too early. It was about 6:30 at this time. The custom in this area is that most restaurants don’t even open until 8:00 (or later) because supper is not consumed until 10:00 at night. Way too late for me.

We skimmed through the menu and the thing that jumped out at both of us was Queso Relleno con Camarones [Cheese stuffed with shrimp]. It is a Yucatecan dish and was also the daily special. We both ordered that. The waiter returned in a moment to tell us that they did not have any more. How do you not have the daily special when you still have 6 hours of meal time left in the day?

No daily special? No music? To make a statement of our disgust, we left.

We then decided to check out an Italian restaurant in the Hyatt Hotel. We got there and seated a bit after 7:00. Only 1-1/2 hours later than we first had planned. It was good. My wife had fettuccine with a great sauce. It topped a chicken breast. There was also some very good ham and grilled onions in the sauce. Bursting with flavor.

I paid $10 for 6 raviolis. My wife’s description of the taste was something like: spinach raviolis stuffed with grilled salmon and topped with lemon pledge. I think that was pretty accurate. It was not very warm either. A bit disappointing. But her’s was so good.

We went and got the kids and brought them home. Then we had planned to brew some coffee and enjoy some cheesecake that we picked up at Sam’s today. Well, we were too stuffed for that. So they all went to bed and I am still here banging on the keyboard. The cheesecake by the way is from The Cheesecake Factory. It is one of the small pleasures we treat ourselves to on occasion. You can buy one of those for the same price as you can buy 2 desserts in a restaurant. And it is far better than any cheesecake we have had here with the exception of Boston’s, which is pretty good.