If you can buy tortillas, you can do anything. Right?



With Isabel, adorable (and
bilingual!) daughter of the
MCC Mexico reps, Marion
and Ricardo.

Yesterday marked the completion of my first week in Mexico. In some ways it feels like I´ve just arrived, and in some ways, it feels like I´ve been here forever.  

When I arrived last Thursday evening at about 9 pm CST, Ricardo, one of the MCC Mexico reps whisked me off to the MCC office/guest house that was to be my home for the next three days. Though I was nervous to sleep alone in this city of 20+ million people, it was also refreshing to have a space to myself after a week of constant people time in Akron.  

Day one in Mexico began with Ricardo taking me to the patio of the guest house/office (for better lighting) and trying to hack off my hoop earring with a pair of pliers. Needless to say, he was not successful. To preface this story, Ricardo was taking me to get immigration photos and apparently there is a strict rule against wearing any type of jewelry. Why couldn´t I just take the earring out myself? Well, I got this piercing during spring break of my first year in college and have never removed it since. The earring was completely stuck despite our best efforts to loosen it. We gave up and traveled by metro (any trip, regardless of distance, costs a mere 3 pesos, or approximately $0.24) to meet the immigration lawyer, and luckily, no one said anything about my now scarred earring. Crisis averted. 

A municipal buildling in the zócalo
(Mexico City´s central plaza) decked
out for independence day (Sept 16). 

I spent the remainder of my three days in Mexico City becoming acquainted with the four MCC workers living there, learning about the inner-workings of MCC Mexico and visiting some of Mexico City´s popular tourist attractions. Though during these three days I saw many impressive buildings, met many interesting people and ate lots of wonderful food, the highlight of my time was a simple act that took mere minutes: buying a bag of tortillas at a corner store. This was the first task I completed solo in Mexico and afterward, I felt like I could handle anything. There have been moments since that first tortilla purchase in which I have felt significantly less competent, but feeling incompetent is part of the journey.  And at least I know I will never go hungry.  After all, there´s always a tortilleria right around the corner.