>(click on the title above to see a great photo gallery of the May 2005 mission trip!)

my words have been locked up inside of me for over two months now, and i have decided to let them come out and play. since i last wrote, i have resigned one job, secured a new one, given notice on an apartment, found a house in my new city, heard some incredible music, been to mexico, heard more incredible music and had some very peaceful days and nights. in that order.

the title here? i was recently in mexico on a mission trip and as seems the pattern, i find myself very focused when visiting there, whatever the mission. this time, it was actually a mission. a mission trip with my church (www.cypressvalley.org) in a little town in Guanajuato, called San Felipe. about the size of my own hometown and also famous for hand-turned pottery. when i was in school in mexico last summer, i was enrolled in a mexican folklore course taught by a highly educated man named sergio. it was in that class that i first became aware of just how deeply steeped in mysticism and superstition the mexican version of catholicism is. i was thinking about those lectures, and it occurred to me a startling, yet not coincidental, distinction: in the Spanish language, there is only one letter’s difference for the words meaning “tradition” and “betrayal”. the letter D. for “Dios” perhaps? i might be giving away a Masters’ thesis topic here, but it just struck me, especially there where the tradition of the rituals and religion associated with the people’s upbringing has a grip on their souls that only God can loosen. i was visiting with a little girl there who had said that she wanted to be baptized, and we were having a little Q&A. one of my Q’s was, “if your mom tells you that you are not to leave the house and go outside to play, but you decide to do it anyway and disobey her, what will happen?”, and she responded with real conviction, “i’ll go to hell”. chilling.

let me back up. on Saturday May 28th, we left east Texas on a bus decorated all about its exterior with a rainbow. we might have known that we were faced with more adventure than usual when it took us two-and-a-half hours to go the first twenty-three miles. that bottle-neck shook loose, and we went another fifty or sixty miles and encountered another. then we (a 33 passenger bus and a giant truck pulling a trailer) made these extremely cowboy moves that resulted in 180º turns on the interstate and led us to the alternate route. that was the bulk of the first adventure. stop to eat in waco. my turn to drive. the truck pulling the trailer. as fate would have it, the first part was smooth sailing but shortly thereafter, it began to rain. the torrential kind. and i could barely see the road. and anyone who knows me well knows that there are very few things on this planet that put fear in my heart. driving in the rain while being responsible for other human lives is certainly at the top of the list. we survived.

on to the border. we had a spanish speaker on the bus, and i was the designated spanish speaker on the truck. we pull into the customs area/border crossing, and we go through one checkpoint. then we get to the next. david (who over the course of this account will be dubbed “king david”) gets out to talk to their agent. i, having freshly applied my new favorite lip gloss (MAC “wonderstruck”), jump down and go to see if david needs any help communicating. i see that he has the keys poised to unlock the padlock on the trailer and swings the doors open wide. i talk with the agent in spanish a little, he asks me what we have loaded on the trailer and what we are going to use it for, and begins verbally considering if he is going to make us unload everything so that he can confirm. and then …he was wonderstruck. and he motions to david to shut and lock the trailer and proceed to the next step. we get back in the truck and dave says, “whatever you do, do not lose that lip gloss!”.

we pull in and park our vehicle and wait for the bus carrying the remainder of our 22-person party. we see them in the distance, and we see them being detained. finally they come to us, and they have been given their tourist visa applications. i am handed one that i filled out the previous december, and i am to find out if i can still use that one or if i have to fill out a new one. we go inside, and i walk up to the counter where the silver-haired man is sitting. i hand him my december visa, and he begins to scold me harshly, telling me i should NOT still have possession of this document, that i am in violation of the law, that my visa expired seven days after it was issued and that i will be slapped with a fine. una multa. a strong one. una muy fuerte. fabulous. fabuloso. so i turn around, while trying to show him respect so he can finish screaming at me, to try and tell my three other friends who are returning with me from the december trip to rip up and/or hide their old applications. one multa fuerte is enough. no need for 20% of the team to be punished. so we are shuttled through the visa application process. i just remembered in this instance that we were not asked for our passports. just our money. generally, we are asked to turn in our passports with the visa application so that they can put a face or at least an original legal document with each visa applicant’s form. i don’t remember doing that this time. unlike december, however, i do remember our being charged $22 U.S. per person for entry into the country of Mexico. on to securing the vehicle permission stickers.

the vehicle permission stickers. you should recognize that this process is begun in confusion, for even though they have their service windows identified with giant numbers — 1, 2, 3, 4 — they are placed in reverse order — 4, 3, 2, 1. somewhat unsettling, but not as much so as the process of working your way through them. we secure the truck permission first. not without incident but certainly quicker that what you are about to read. then the bus permission. first of all, every vehicle that is going into mexico has to have this sticker. if you make it in without it, congratulations, but your vehicle will be seized, no questions asked, if you do not have it just below and to the left side of your rearview mirror. 4, 3, 2, 1. once you get to 3, you begin considering a sigh of relief. and then they send you to the copy stand to get a copy of one of your pieces of paper. then you go back to the front of the line, which, even though it’s policy, undoubtedly enrages all the hordes of people who have been standing in line forever. the agent’s cell phone rings. she answers. no she does not. oh yes, she does. and she giggles. and she turns to the side. and chats. at this point, i’m going on fifteen hours without a shower, which is not terribly uncommon considering how busy and ambitious we Americans are. but, i am fifteen hours without a shower, and i am guaranteed at least another twelve hours in the same condition. she sees the impatience on my face, perhaps. or maybe she finished her conversation. she puts her phone down and tries to get us through window 3 so we can go on to 4, and there is a problem. she asks someone to show us where our bus is. he goes out and scribbles a few numbers on a piece of paper. he returns. she tries again. shakes her head. back to 1. go make copies. scribble down numbers. back to 2. make some more copies. what about this guy? where’s the bus you brought here in december. oh yeah, all the air conditioning stopped working, so we brought another one. you cannot get another vehicle permission because you did not cancel that one in december. can anyone else here take out the permission in their name? perhaps. wonderstruck. wonderstruck. wonderstruck. there’s no place like home. there’s no place like home. wonderstruck apparently has no same sex powers unless you use it expressly for that purpose. we run to get someone else whose name is at least on the permission letter from the church. here he is. so, thankfully, we use the written language barrier to convince the agent(s. yes, agents. there are multiple puberty-pushing officials now on our case, tossing their heads back and laughing smugly from time to time). so now we have copies of all the wrong documents because we have changed permission-getters. back to copy station. back to 1. back to 2. go to the head of the line.

…to be continued

the long and the short of it is…wait, there was no short of it. we were detained for six-and-a-half hours trying to unravel the mystery. after our third or fourth pass through the numbered windows, someone comes from behind the counter to peruse our documents then says, as if surprised herself, “oh. this is a bus. yes, it’s the same bus you have sent three different agents outside to confirm is a bus. we do not issue vehicle permissions for buses in this office. are you kidding me? since when? about two months ago. the law changed. we did not get the memo. where do we get said bus permission now then? at the federal palace, about six blocks from here. six blocks from here. walking. because we do not have permission to drive our vehicle. walking through the bullet-riddled, drug-war-torn streets of nuevo laredo, mexico. gringos. (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Mexico-Lawless-City.html?).

but the federal palace does not open until 8am. it’s 5:30 in the morning. so we sit around. most everyone boards the bus, and i remain inside with the ones who are involved in the vehicle near-transactions. i climb the stairs to go to the restroom, introduce myself to a guard, and i ask him where is the federal palace and how do we get there from here. he explains it to me. then says he would be happy to be our guide to getting there when his shift ends. in an hour-and-a-half. Jorge. so, we wander over to the in-house restaurant — it’s like they know they are going to keep you waiting, so they provide sustenance — and decide on plain coffee. outside to get fresh air and drink it. time passes. jorge’s free. so, david, russ, martin and i take off walking with a complete Mexican stranger in the general direction of the federal palace. i chat with jorge. he asks me if i’m single. and which one of these gentlemen is my father. perhaps he’s going to ask for my hand right there in the street. mi vida loca.

we arrive at the federal palace, which is not very palacial at all. and it’s also not very open. why? it’s Sunday. it does not open until 8am on Monday. great. however, in a fit of extreme hopefulness, we circle the building twice. and look at the closed for business sign. twice. we confirm with a local policeman that it is a fruitless mission. at least for today. we walk back through the war-torn streets of nuevo laredo at sun-up, and we thank jorge for his time and efforts and re-enter the customs building. new strategy? wait for a shift change. another hour. we avoid the scary old man from the first phase of the experience, and i find another gentlemen who looks far gentler. he dispenses a little hope and notes that he will have to consult his supervisor who apparently does not punch the same clock as he does and who is likely to arrive in another quarter-hour. so we sit. and loiter. i check back in. another member of personnel asks to go inspect the bus. we are given written, special dispensation to take out a vehicle permission for the bus, and we are sent back to the head of the line. window 1. we get as far as 3, and one of the same agents looks at us quizzically, as if to say, haven’t i seen you here before? haven’t i denied you entry once today already?.

she takes all of our papers, marches us back down to the customs window and asks what the special note is all about. and says that it does not really clarify that she can give us the sticker. her writes a little more. stamps it again. and she seems satisfied. back to 1. a boy comes up and begins hand-writing a vehicle permission form, takes our payment and hands me the form through the little 3-inch opening in the glass. i notice that he has not signed it. which undoubtedly renders it worthless. i point it out. he laughs. as if his oversight would not have cost us our bus and however many thousands of dollars it would have taken to get 22 people back the the United States without it. he signs it, returns it. i go to the bathroom, and we roll out of there. at about 10am. 22 hours without a shower. only 12 more to go. i never knew how much i enjoyed being clean.

on we go, pretty much without incident. that’s the story of the point of entry. the rest will have to wait.