Part II Day 196: September 3, 2010 (living in a song, rubber necking on the turkey necks, and locating the homeless)

I’ve been places in the world––Auvers-sur-Oise outside of Paris, France, where Vincent van Gogh is buried; the sunflower-filled countryside of Pisa, Italy––where I’ve felt like I was actually living inside of a painting for a short time. At the Community Soup Bowl, a free soup kitchen in Tuscaloosa, AL, I feel like I’m living inside of a blues song. I sit between two African-American men whose accents are so thick, the only lines I understand are when the older guy in front of me says, "Man, I’m so hungry today," and when, after saying it again a few minutes later, the other guy next to me says, "You eatin' like a bear today."

The female dining room volunteer stops by and asks the older man how his wife’s doing. "Hard-headed," he says. They have an exchange that I can’t follow, then, as she’s walking away, she says, "I’m gonna hafta come over there an’ talk to her ass." He looks at me and says, "Hospital ain’t nothin’ to be messin’ with." I nod in agreement, and continue eating my meal of chicken salad, peas, corn, Saltine crackers, mixed salad, and a Styrofoam cup of fruit punch. The old guy says, "Don’t tell me I’m gonna eat all this." He pauses. "I ain’t gettin’ no seconds." (People are allowed to get two plates of food, and some do, but you'd have to be really hungry to want seconds.)

When I arrived this morning, the dining room was almost exclusively African-American men of various ages. Since then, a 55-year-old white guy with prison tattoos and his wife came in, a few African-American women, a pair of Latino laborers, a couple of white women who looked like possible meth addicts, and an entire African-American family--tomorrow is the daughter's thirteenth birthday. Surprising to me, many of the people were overweight.

Amy, the kind diminutive white woman who runs the kitchen, was talking about how she couldn't feed kids healthy meals when she was in charge of school children somewhere: "They wouldn't eat the green beans or other vegetables I made. They wouldn't even eat mac 'n' cheese because I made it with real cheese. No wonder we have an obesity problem." When she said that, the man serving the peas and corn turned around and said, "We've got an obesity problem 'cause we're fat." We all laughed.

I called the other day to ask about volunteering, and Amy said, "We're on Greensboro, right between the Piggly Wiggly and Church's Chicken." I've only heard of Piggly Wigglys through Steve Yarbrough's books, but since I arrived at the center early this morning, I decided to check this one out.

Somewhere along my bikeride over here, I passed an invisible color line in town; maybe at 15th St. With the exception of one white customer, everyone in the Piggly Wiggly was African-American. I strolled the aisles, enjoying the air conditioning, and when I reached the butcher's section, the raw meat "family packs" with bright orange stickers caught my eye: turkey necks, neatly arranged in rows; pigs' feet, four or five per pack; and some dark red bits labeled "stew meat" all sat wrapped in clear plastic. I'd never seen anything like it.

When the door of the Community Soup Bowl opened, Amy took me into her office. She said they serve between 100 and 150 lunches daily, seven days per week, but that today would be slow because people receive their Social Security and disability checks on the first and third of each month. "We'll be busy again on Monday." She tells me about a few of the 29 homeless agencies in town, which were mentioned in this article in Tuscaloosa News about the Homeless Advisory Group, who counted "223 homeless people in Tuscaloosa, including 41 children" this past January.

(I've also found out about a strange program that my bank, Albama Credit Union, does called "Secret Meals for Hungry Children," where they surreptitiously stuff food into needy children's backpacks at school. Seriously. You can read about it in this article from Tuscaloosa News. The Secret Meals program says that 20% of Alabama children live below the poverty line. Paradoxically, Tuscaloosa's 8.6% unemployment rate is below the 9.5% national average, as well as Alabama's average of 9.7%.)

But, as I asked in my previous post, where are all the homeless people? Amy says the people not living at the Salvation Army's facility or the VA Hospital live under the Northport Bridge on the Northport side of the Black Warrior River (apparently, I was looking on the wrong side of the river) and behind the Wal Mart on Skyland Blvd. on the south side of town. I'll probably check out the Northport homeless camp on Sunday.

In the meantime, it feels like a tight community here in the Community Soup Bowl. None of these people seems homeless--two guys even wear their flourescent worker vests--but you never know. As when I arrived, there are only African-American men left in the dining room. They all know and greet each other by name as a new person walks in or someone leaves. The old man in front of me says to a tall thin elegant man, who's name would be "Slim" if this were a novel, "Just keep walkin’ like you don’t know no one." When the tall man, wearing a nice shirt and fitted pants and a baseball hat and sunglasses, smiles, the old man says, "What’s up, pimp daddy?”

Not only does the Community Soup Bowl provide meals for whomever walks in the door, the Alabama Retarded Citizens group comes in to wash the dishes every other day. They are a jolly bunch, and their presence and enthusiasm brightens the kitchen. The men in the group all shook my hand when I walked in--one said he hadn't seen me in a long time--and now that they're leaving, one of the men gives all of the women volunteers from various churches hugs and the men, including me, handshakes.

When I finally go to leave, Amy shouts out, "Be sure to tell your students to come here and eat. They can write about it." As she told me before, everyone's welcome. So come on down and meet your neighbors, Tuscaloosa.

Part II Day 184: August 22, 2010 (in search of the homeless of Tuscaloosa)

Position: Part-time instructor and homeless hunter.

Last night at the Alcove, Dave Madden, the new nonfiction faculty member in the University of Alabama's MFA program, commented on the lack of visible homeless people in Tuscaloosa. I concurred, saying I've only seen maybe one man that looked homeless since I've been here. According to this outdated Tuscaloosa News article, the local branch of the Salvation Army only has 68 beds, and the VA Hospital, which "serves most of north and central Alabama," only has 48 beds in their domiciliary unit. Unlike many major downtowns in American cities, you just don't see many homeless people here.

"They're all down by the river," a local lawyer, protested. "I can see them from my office window. It's a real problem down there."

So this morning, around 8:30 a.m., I headed down by the Black Warrior River (Tuscaloosa is a portmanteau of the Choctaw words tushka, meaning "warrior," and lusa, meaning "black") to search out and possibly talk to homeless people. I assumed I would find a small encampment but didn't. I spotted this one artifact––which could be construed as evidence of a homeless lifestyle, but could just as easily be a lazy man's lunch––near a park bench:

My next mission is to make my way over to the Salvation Army center. Stay tuned . . .

Part II Day 176: August 14, 2010 (jerry's nuts and busing out of town)

Position: New Tuscaloosa Resident

"I'm pretty sure I saw a boiled peanuts stand back there," I tell my newfound friend Annie, a first-year MFA student at the university. She's driven me to the outskirts of town on Hwy. 82 in order to help recover my boxes I shipped out from California. Greyhound said it would take about 4 days for my boxes to arrive, but that was before they shipped one of them to Illinois by accident. Two days ago, I walked five blocks from my house in blistering heat and humidity to claim my boxes at the downtown Greyhound station only to learn they'd moved to this new location, a BP station outside of town.

When I go into the gas station, I see the Greyhound desk occupying a small area in the back. Outside, a bus is either picking up or dropping off customers, the majority of whom are black. After I claim my boxes, which aren't stored in the back but sitting right out in the open by the gas station's front door, I meet Annie outside. "This is stupid," I say. "Why the hell would they put the Greyhound station way out here? I mean, isn't the entire point is that Greyhound is for people without cars? It looks like mostly poor black people in there. The downtown location would have been much more accessible."

When we turn the car around on Hwy 82, I tell Annie I'm not sure where I saw the boiled peanuts guy. "I love, love, love boiled peanuts, "Annie says. She grew up outside of D.C. and the peanuts remind her of summer family trips down south to the Carolinas. "I think I saw him back by the gas station. I know I saw an old guy putting out several boiled peanuts signs––they said "Ralph's boiled peanuts" or something––but I can't remember where I saw him." Back by the gas station, we see the stand: "Jerry's boiled peanuts."

Jerry is a large older man, sporting a yellowish-gray-haired ponytail, a crimson colored muscle half-shirt that exposes his hairy gelatinous belly, and a pair of shorts and sandals. His blotchy skin is red from the sun, his nose bulbous from drink. His fingernails and toenails are partially split and discolored from a fungal infection. His blue eyes look squeezed together by his baggy eyelids and brow skin. In front of Jerry sit two mucky boiling pots hooked to propane tanks. A single well-used glove rests on each pot. Small Zip-lock bags of what look like dirty wet peanuts are arranged on a cooler.

Annie tells him she just loves boiled peanuts. "Well, I've got regular and Cajun," he says in a thick Alabama accent. "The Cajun ones is a little spicy but not too spicy." Annie tells him she's tried to boil some at home but with poor results. "If you try to boil the dry kind," Jerry continues, "it'll take you about eight hours. You need to get them green. And even then, it takes about two hours." We continue discussing the finer points of peanut boiling, and Jerry says, "I got the same people coming by here a couple times a week; they're eatin' a lot of peanuts. I eat––I do eat my own product, about a bag a day, I'd guess."

We tell Jerry we're new to town. "Oh you're gonna love it here. I been here, oh, about a couple years now, and I love it. I'm really looking forward to football season." I tell him that it seems safe here. "It’s a great town," he says "You could walk around any neighborhood in downtown at night and be . . . well, maybe not every neighborhood, but you could walk around down by the river and be perfectly fine. I plan on staying here.” I mention the stupidity of the Greyhound station relocation, and Jerry says, "A cab ride would cost you eighteen bucks just to get out here. You could easily of jump on a city bus when it was in downtown.”

Annie asks him what brought him from Montgomery to Tuscaloosa. "Well, it was a bit of a relocation situation," he says. He rubs his large rough hands, which look like, at one time, they could have crushed a man like a miniature origami orangutang. But now his pudgy fingers are wrinkled and bent inward with the signs of arthritis. Jerry takes a long uncomfortable pause, the kind a man takes before breaking down and sobbing or admitting something terrible happened in his past. Annie assumes it will be something about prison. "I . . . uh . . . I . . . it was an alcohol problem."

I tell him that can be tough. "When you're down," he says, "it keeps you there." He looks up, and in a tone that sounds like we need convincing, he says, "But my life has completely turned around. Been about three years sober. I don't know what y'all believe or nothin', but the man upstairs helped me out. I mean . . . I wasn’t much of a Bible thumper . . . well, I’m still not much of a Bible thumper, but I know He did this for me, because I didn’t have the power to do it myself." Jerry looks us right in the eyes and his sincerity is heartbreaking. He seems like a character out of a Johnny Cash song, perhaps the "Kneeling Drunkards Plea."

"I'm not making no excuses about drinking. I've had some physical problems, but I'm not blaming that. I was in Vietnam, and I'm not blaming that, either. Up in Montgomery, I had a great spot. Took me time to develop it, but I was making $600 a week. Clearing! Of course, I’m not makin' that kind of money here. I need to develop this spot. I've asked the landlord to move this school bus so I'll be more visible. I think he's going to do that for me." Jerry turns around and points to a mobile home behind some trees. "I live right back there in that mobile home." He used to have his stand on the other side of the BP station, but the gas station manager told him to leave after BP customers complained that he was soliciting them. "I wasn't doin' no such thing."

"You know, you'd think it'd be hard to screw up a boilin' peanuts operation," he says, talking about Montgomery, "but that's exactly what I did. One day, I woke up flat out on the ground looking up at two police officers. I had tucked a wine bottle under my head as a pillow before I passed out. A friend from AA vouched for me, and that's the only reason I didn't end up in jail."

Jerry is exactly the kind of character I was hoping to meet in Alabama, but, like many of the other residents of this area, I'm disarmed by his overwhelming kindness. In Australia, he'd be called a "battler," a guy who constantly has hard luck but battles it our for life, holding on anyway he can. And his boiled peanuts are delicious, especially the Cajun style. "Be sure to tell all your friends I'm out here," he says.

If you're ever out on Hwy. 82, south of Tuscaloosa, be sure to stop and buy some peanuts and have a chat with Jerry. Don't worry, he'll do all the boiling and talking.

Part II Day 173: August 11, 2010 (losing hope and life in tough economic times)

Position: Part-time Temporary Instructor

EDD Check: $250 per week ($0 left in award balance)

I'm not poor, nor have I ever been. I've lived on couches and felt the burning pain of hunger, but those were by choice, and I always had the resources and power to end those situations. What I can't control is the lack of self-worth I've felt collecting unemployment. You may think it's wonderful to be home all day, doing whatever you like, but you're limited by the sparse income and sudden lack of energy brought on by depression. Your life loses structure.

In these hard economic times, it's no surprise that in my new home of Tuscaloosa, AL, a small college town of 78,000 residents, the suicide rate reached a new record last year––31 dead––and is set to eclipse it this year (20 already dead by July, 31) . While people choose to cash out on life for different reasons, this article in the Tuscaloosa News quotes Dr. Beverly Thorn, the chair of the University of Alabama's psychology department, as saying that "hard economic times could be at the root of some of the cases." Four times as many men in this town committed suicide this year than women, most often by a gunshot wound. The article opens with a man in his thirties shooting himself in the head in his home and being discovered by his parents, but never talks about his economic situation.

While I assume the higher suicide rate among men in hard economic times is due to the loss of one's ability and social/instinctual need to provide, that cannot be proven. And since only seven of the twenty suicides this year left notes, and the article doesn't disclose the contents of those notes, we may never know how poverty or a loss of employment directly correlates to suicide. By reading Urdo Grashoff's strange collection of German suicide notes, called Let Me Finish, I've learned that lost love can be just as responsible as lost wages for suicide and general economic standing doesn't determine the likelihood of suicide. Rich people kill themselves as often as poor people.

What I've also discovered by moving to Tuscaloosa sans personal transportation is that living in a city designed for automobiles can prove unmanageable for those who cannot afford a car. I've only been here less than a week, but riding my bike in 100 degree heat across town (20 minutes each way) to buy needed supplies at Target, such as a pot in which to cook oats and rice, can make anyone feel suicidal. One must rely on the kindness of strangers or new friends with cars in order to survive. At least I have that option. I can also afford a car, so I feel sorry for those who can't. They must feel trapped in their homes.

As you can tell, I'm struggling to find a new angle on poverty here to write about, but that's not the point (suggestions are welcome, though). For me, the point of this "experiment" has been to highlight the plight of the poor in our country and to develop a culture of volunteerism in my own life, which has sadly been lacking until this point. As soon as I get settled and my classes are humming along, I shall begin finding ways to volunteer and continue writing about the poor. Stay tuned . . .

In the meantime, here is some Gil Scott-Heron singing about my life:

Part II Day 163: August 1, 2010 (saying what you have and what you are, before saying goodbye)

Position: Volunteer

EDD Check: $250 per week ($250 left in award balance)

Hours Volunteered: 3

Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $1,300

I knew saying goodbye would be difficult before we arrived here, but I had no idea how difficult. I've accepted a part-time teaching position at the University of Alabama for fall, and I must move to Tuscaloosa by the end of this week.

When we enter the Bhutanese family's apartment, the familiar quilt is laid out on the floor, grandma sits in her place on the couch, and the mom squats between the kitchen and dinner table, peeling potatoes over a bowl on the floor. The father disappears into the back room and returns with his note pad, ready for the lesson.

In my absence, Etel has been teaching them the verbs "to have" and "to be." Etel and I run them through the items they have: "I have four children"; "I have a sofa"; "I have a table," etc. After we cover most of the items and people in the room––"I have a husband"––we move on to the expansive verb, "to be." We start with physical descriptions, which, because of our lack of preparation, leads to awkward and funny moments. It's easy to describe the father: "You are tall," followed by, "You are thin." The kids translate the meaning of thin, and we all agree that the dad is tall and thin.

When we turn to the mom, we can only describe her as short. "I am short," she says. The body type for her is a little more difficult. Etel turns to me and says, "What's the word for being between thin and fat?"

I stumble and say, "Normal?"

The mom already knows the opposite of thin, and she announces, "I am short and fat." We all laugh, including the kids, but it sounds awful. "No, no," Etel says, "you are thin," which isn't quite true either. The mom has an average body for a short Bhutanese woman, neither thin nor fat, but she's definitely roundish. The mom laughs and repeats that she's short and fat, and Etel, unlike Cosmopolitan Magazine, assures her she's thin.

We move on to conditional forms of "to be," such as "I am hungry" and "I am warm," which they quickly understand. They struggle for a minute with the negative use, adding in "not," before finally getting it: "I am not cold"; "I am not hungry." The oldest daughter has been in the kitchen this whole time cooking, and I, personally, am very hungry.

When we finish the lesson, we move to the couch and the mom folds and puts away the quilt. The daughter serves us fry bread and samosas and tomato curry paste with cups of water, since we've said we prefer not to have coffee and tea today. Etel, as usual, barely eats anything while I chow down, and the family takes notice. "You don't eat," the mother says.

"I'm not that hungry," Etel says and points to her stomach. The mother tells Etel that she is thin, and then grandma speaks up from across the room. She says something in Nepali, and then points at her belly. We don't understand, so in order to be more demonstrative she lifts her shirt and sagging breasts to reveal her bare, flabby stomach. The kids translate: "She says she is fat and you are thin." We love the grandmother's sense of humor, even though we can't understand her, and we're just glad she didn't expose her breasts.

Etel reminds the oldest daughter again how we've collected money to help her pay the relocation loan. She looks "sigh" again, but is very thankful. Etel hands her an envelope with $100 and says, "This is to make your first payment."

The kids ask Etel if she can help them with the new apartment they're trying to move the family into, because they don't understand what's going on. Etel calls the new landlord and sets up an appointment for the next day. When she's done, I broach the subject of my move. The family looks confused, so I explain I received a teaching job. "But you already have a job with the IRC," the son says. We explain that we are volunteers, that we don't get paid, and he's incredulous. "I thought you got paid by the IRC," he says. "We have volunteers at school, so I know what that is."

I manage to say, "I'm very sad," but can't hold back the emotions. I walk over to the door, sit on the floor and slip on my shoes while staring at the wall, and then walk outside to the end of the apartment walkway. I watch the kids soccer game across the street and try to compose myself, but I can't. A Somali girl bends down at the small BBQ next to me and lifts the lid. Unrecognizable cuts of meat cover the grill. She jams a large knife past the meat and stirs the coals. "What kind of meat is that?" I ask. Beef.

When I get myself together, I return to the apartment. While I was gone, the youngest daughter brought out a map and asked Etel to show her where I'm moving. "It's far," she said when Etel pointed to Alabama on the map. I sit back down on the couch, and the mom stares at me with pain in her eyes. I'm trying hard to hold it together. "It's very sad," the son says.

"Yes, I'm very sad," I say.

When we go to leave, I shake the son's hand, bow to grandma and say "Namaste," shake hands with the youngest daughter, and then hug the mom and oldest daughter, before I head for the door. Damn, this is hard. They make me promise to call and e-mail them, and I say I will.

Tomorrow, Etel will return and take them to the new apartment, where they won't understand why they can't leave their old apartment without a 30-day notice and why the new landlord––who greeted them by saying, "Does anyone speak English here?"––won't hold the apartment until the end of the month for them. It's all so confusing to the Bhutanese family, and the old landlord won't budge. "30-days is California law," he'll say, "and I'm tired of them saying they're moving out, they're staying, they're moving."

What he may or may not know is that the landlord at other apartment they had lined up for $895, changed the price on them at the last minute, saying it was now $1,200, the same amount they're paying. I've never really understood what slum lords are, but now I know. They overcharge for crappy apartments in crappy parts of town and take advantage of people like the Bhutanese and their confusion.

After their failed attempt to set up a new apartment, Etel will drive them back to their old apartment, and the mom will turn to her and say, "I am sad Eric go. I learned so much from him." And that breaks my heart.

Part II Day 148: July 17, 2010 (dividing carrots by streets, and the white shoes that nearly took mine away)

Position: Soryteller

EDD Check: $250 per week ($750 balance left in award)

Money Raised for Bhutanese Family: $1,300 (only $100 left to reach our goal)

Mexican Interlude Part II:

Theft is the product of desire. As in you have something I want, not necessarily need but want, and I either don't have the means to obtain it or the willpower to avoid the desire. Theft isn't easy to explain. Some people steal glasses from bars, even when they can afford to buy them, their judgement ruined by desire.

But there is also this element of dangling carrots in people's faces, the "haves" creating desire in the "have-nots." In cities like my hometown of Fresno, the carrots are separated from the carrot-less by distance and main thoroughfares––Herndon, Belmont, Hwy 99––and neighborhoods are mostly segregated by de facto. That's why major cities, such as New York, are shocking to me: the people with the most carrots live very near those with the least, though border streets keep them semi-separated (e.g. 110th in Manhattan).

With a large American and Canadian ex-pat population (10-12%), San Miguel de Allende is an anomaly in Mexico. While many parts of the country have descended into a drug war hell of deaths and decapitations, San Miguel remains blissfully high in the central desert. It's retained its colonial luster, and gringo dollars keep the economy moving, beer prices high, and the streets relatively safe. But the strange thing about this town is that while there are "good" and "bad" neighborhoods, many people have built mansions in the midst of poor neighborhoods, ignoring the common courtesy of unspoken segregation. Sure, from the outside many of these palatial spreads look inconspicuous behind their ten-foot high walls and spiked gates, but like tinted windows, we know who's inside: someone with lots of carrots.

Under unfortunate circumstances that I don't want to get into, I end up staying in a beautiful studio apartment in a section of nice San Miguel houses bordering the poor neighborhood of San Antonio, where crime is on the rise.

The first night after being out, I arrive back at around 3:30 a.m. (bars don't seem to have official closing times and it's easy to lose track of time). I take my bar smoked T-shirt off and hang it outside to air out, then sit down at the computer. Though I've heard the story of how a local man mixed up in drugs was recently decapitated (he was the exception not the rule), how a newspaper baron and his wife were kidnapped from here three years ago and he was held for ransom (dangled too many carrots), and how four years ago a serial rapist targeted foreign women (Americans), I feel relatively safe.

That's why when I hear the gate downstairs open and footsteps on the stairs, I think nothing of it. The neighbors must have been out late. And since they stopped and jangled my doorknob, they must also be drunk.

I look out the door window and only see a pair of white Adidas ascending to the third floor (I'm on the second), and my suspicions are confirmed: drunk neighbor. I return to the computer, but then I hear the footsteps descending the stairs. I meet them by my door, and just before I peer out, the metal screen on the window next to the door gets punched in: Boom!

Holy shit! I think, someone's coming inside. I yell, "Órale, vato," and slam the door-like window shut, hoping I crush hands or smash a face.

I hear the white Adidas scramble down the stairs and out the gate while I run to the kitchen window facing the alley and yell, "Policía, policía!" In two seconds, I no longer hear the Adidas slapping the cobblestone rocks of the streets. I grab a full tequila bottle the previous occupant left, and open the front door, looking to smack a head if he returns. I'm too scared to descend the stairs into the darkness and make sure the gate is secure.

I pace and then sit, shaking and unable to calm down. A friend from my school days, a lawyer living in Thousand Oaks, California, reads my distress on facebook, and talks to me through the instant messenger "Chat function" until I can sleep.

Tomorrow night will be worse, as I will anticipate a second attempt and awake every half hour. I will try sleeping with the TV and lights on. I will place a steak knife on the nightstand––to what? Commit murder in Mexico? I speculate on whom the robber was: probably the poor teenager around the corner who watched me move in with my oversized hiking backpack and laptop carrying case.

I grow skittish, and the next day, while I'm reading in the Jardín, a teenager and his friend, wearing white Adidas, will sit down next to me, and I'll want to confront them. Like a missing lunch in a classroom, everyone is now suspect. But white Adidas are just popular shoes right now, because there will be more kids and more Adidas in the Jardín, and any pair could belong to the mid-morning marauder just as easily as they could not.

And this paranoia, this sense that I'm no longer safe, is the price we pay, the carrot holders, the danglers.

Part II Day 143: July 12, 2010 (the story of Sidney, the voice of God, and his life in Mexico)

Position: Storyteller

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)