"Fun" Mexican Style

Update:  If you are looking for the corn silk remedy, it is at the bottom of the page.  ;)  Welcome to my blog, hope you stay and look around.

So, here is some of the "fun" we get to deal with living outside the U.S.  Today the electricity goes out.  Sam goes and checks and it has been cut without notification of any kind.  He goes into the electric company, who conveniently cut it right before their closing hours.  Being the second time we've dealt with this, he bypasses the line and goes to the supervisor.  He explains that our electricity has been cut and we have not paid the bill, because we have not received a bill, that it is the responsibility of said supervisors to make sure our bill is delivered and we would like to have our electricity reconnected.  IF the electric company cannot find our house to deliver the bill, but they can find it to cut the service, how long do you think it will take for them to find the house to reconnect it?  I know, about a week and that will be with Sam going in every morning and reexplaining to the same supervisor where our house is.  Said supervisor explains that there will be a work order created to reconnect now that we have paid our bill, we only need to pay the 80 peso fee for reconnection, for the second time.  Sam explains he will not be paying the reconnection fee since it is their fault not ours and he already paid a reconnection fee once and explained where our house is and wonders how they can find the house to cut the electricity with no notification.  She explains the electricity will not be reconnected without paying the fee.  We have electricity tonight and we did not pay their "fee", I will not continue the story as to not incriminate anyone.  This whole process of course took a good part of the middle of the day, a huge chuck of Sam's study time.  Bless his heart, I sure do love him for dealing with everything so well.

On another front, I guess the water company has decided that water will only be supplied during the evening and night hours.  Would have been nice to have a heads up, so I could have adjusted my showering, clothes washing schedules.  Still I'm grateful for electricity, water, internet and such other luxuries.  They seem to have cut the electricity to some of the apartments next door also and 80 pesos will be much harder on their budgets than ours.

We love being here.  We love our friends here.  This afternoon Hannah and Lena went over to a church ladies house and learned some new crafty stuff.  The boys had friend in the backyard helping them make a fort.  I'm not complaining at all.  It was a little discouraging and frustrating, but we're not complaining.  I just thought you might be interested in hearing some of the interesting things we deal with from time to time.

In more news, we sport green mustaches at are house instead of the traditional white ones.  :)

 The boys' fort they have been building in the backyard with the neighbors.  Quite impressive!

 Also, not all, but much of my herbal knowledge is obsolete here in Mexico.  I'm having to learn new natural and herbal remedies.  For example. My go-to advice for a UTI in the U.S. would have been cranberry tablets, which are easily purchased at the health food store.  Cranberries aren't easy to find here and most cranberry juices are loaded with sugar, which would defeat the purpose of using them for UTI.  My new Mexican remedy for UTI is fresh coconut water, oregano tincture and corn silk tea.  That's right, the "pello de elote" made into a tea or better yet an infusion.  When I told the vendor I wanted the corn with a lot of silk of the ears, he did not seem surprised.  I learned it is also good for heart problems, edema and to dissolve kidney stones.  I will have to discuss with one of the Mexican midwifes to see if it is contradicted in pregnancy, as it seem to have some natural diuretic proporties.

Image courtesy of kai4107 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net