Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $1,175* (see note below)
Mexico Interlude:
Two years ago, my friend Sidney went to Mexico with an engagement ring in his pocket. He didn't do this to surprise his girlfriend on the trip. He didn't even have a girlfriend, nor did he have any prospects of finding one. Though he was a 45-year-old who didn't look a day over thirty, women were not necessarily attracted to him. Some even said he was repulsive. And living with his 80-something-year-old mother in Houston probably didn't increase his odds at finding marital bliss late in life.
Being from Texas, Sidney could be considered a victim of his own racist and homophobic culture. He often says things that the more sensitive among us would find offensive, especially out of the mouth of anyone besides Sidney. You see, there's a child-like innocence about him, a pureness of heart, that makes his statements seem as harmless as the curious white child who inquires if black people are made of chocolate (true story from Bill Riddlesprigger––R.I.P.) or another child who once asked me why my gums were so big (they just are).
When Sidney came to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, two years ago, he brought two main questions along with that ring: 1) Could he find a Mexican wife (he announced his intentions to every Mexican woman we encountered, including the middle-aged bank teller)? 2) Would it be possible, since he is poor, to bury his dear mother in Mexico for less than he could in the U.S. (he inquired at a local casket dealer)? Sidney would often rant about the injustices in the U.S., about how medical bills bankrupted his elderly parents, and how his mother said Americans want to build the border wall to keep Americans in, not Mexicans out. I would listen to his complaints and nod my head.
After a month in Mexico, Sidney's questions went unanswered. But a year later, he received the answer to at least one of them. He returned to San Miguel, and while on a trip to Mexico City, he saw a pretty Mexican girl sitting in the bus station at Queretero. As one version goes, Sidney heard a voice, presumably God's, tell him to go and talk to the girl. He did. Only God knows what was said between them, and they parted ways with a promise to stay in touch.
Though an admitted technophobe, Sidney religiously sent and answered e-mails with his lady friend in Mexico after his return to Texas. Four or five months into their heated e-mail exchange, he asked her to marry him. She said yes. And after proving he was baptized in the name of Jesus, though the certificate was from a Mormon church, a large Catholic wedding ensued in Mexico, attended by all of her family and none of his. Even though he only speaks as much Spanish as she speaks English, which is very little, he moved to Jilotepec, an hour outside Mexico City, to live with her family.
While living in Mexico, his dear mother died last winter in the care facility in which she lived. Unfortunately for Sidney, no one notified him of her death for almost a month. By the time he returned to Texas, their Pakistani landlord had thrown out all of his mother's possessions. This meant he had nothing to remember his parents by. No nicknacks, no grandfather clock, not even pictures of his father, who served in WWII. Sidney felt this action was heartless and speculated about how the Pakistani family was able to afford the building in the first place (illegal arms sales in Pakistan being his initial guess).
Before returning to Mexico by bus, Sidney, who used to deal in antiques, sold off most of his possessions and antiques and resigned himself to a simpler life in Mexico with his pretty, 32-year-old wife. "I like nice things," he said in his soft voice. "Not because I'm homo or nothin'. I just like nice things." But his nice things were gone.
While he rents a decent two-bedroom apartment for $200 a month in Mexico, he hasn't been able to make much of a living. He had a job teaching English at a night school, but his wife objected out of jealousy (she thinks he likes the school's proprietor). "I ain't thinking of no other women or nothin' like that," he says. "She's jealous. That's just how Latina women are." And since his wife's flat stomach is now gestating and bulging with a baby, he must find a new way to provide for his expanding family. He's thinking of moving them to the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, and taking temp work over in Brownsville, TX, commuting daily by bus. I told him that's probably not a good idea.
Despite his troubles, Sidney says to me, "You need to get you a beautiful Mexican girl. Or maybe even just a pretty one. The thing about Mexico," he says, "is that there isn't any shame in being poor, because almost everyone is poor." I think that's what I find oddly appealing about Sidney's story, because I live in a culture where the subtext is that everyone is expected to be rich or famous. And if you don't at least have some modest success, as defined by those parameters, then you're made to feel like a failure.
(*Note: I'm impressed and flattered by all the kind donations we've received to help our Bhutanese family repay their relocation loan. Thank you all so much. I'm touched. We only need about 300 more dollars)
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