C.E. Flores's Blog, page 41

Shopping Online In Mexico

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Since today is Prime Day at Amazon, I thought I’d talk a little about ordering things online from Mexico. I haven’t been very adventurous ordering from many sites online because well, I’m concerned that my Capital One 360 account will be suspended for fraud. It’s happened. In fact, while I was traveling last month, I tried to pay for my son’s exam fee through UVEG online and that 56 pesos transaction triggered a total account shut down. I spent hours on the phone explaining that I was traveling and verifying who I was. Ironically, not one of my transactions in Philadelphia, Chicago or Mexico City airport was denied. 

Anyway, I use both Amazon and Amazon Mexico to order products. I find that Amazon has more selection than their Mexican counterpart and as long as I make sure that the item is eligible to be shipped to Mexico, I have few problems. Amazon calculates the import fees for me. If the import fees turn out to be less than what Amazon estimated, I get a refund on the difference. 

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I get free shipping options when I order from Amazon Mexico. Most orders more than $499 pesos have a free shipping option without needing to enroll in Amazon Prime. I really appreciate that option. It may take me a little longer to receive things, but I’m patient. 

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If you like to sign up for a 30-day Prime Trial membership–you can do that here and take advantage of the Prime Day offers. 

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I also like to shop at Zulily. I have the option to pay via Paypal there instead of my debit card, so I like that added security. Zulily has closeout items at great prices and ships to Mexico for $120 per order no matter how many packages the order is. And there is free shipping for orders more than $1500 pesos. I like to buy puzzles through Zulily. Again, I have to wait a bit because Zulily doesn’t ship items until the box is full, but I’m good with that.

Both Amazon and Zulily have been great when orders have been lost or items have been wrong. Amazon Mexico hasn’t been as helpful overall which is a shame really. 

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My most recent foray into the online market is EyeBuyDirect, a prescription glasses wholesaler. While we were in the U.S. we managed to get eye appointments. It turns out that my son needs his first pair of glasses and I need to make the transition to bifocals. I’ve never ordered glasses online before, but it was considerably cheaper than buying glasses at the eye doctor’s and they ship to Mexico albeit UPS so we could be waiting awhile. Paypal is a payment option at EyeBuyDirect as well. We are still waiting on our glasses, so I’ll let you know how they are once they arrive.

Do you shop online from Mexico? What sites do you recommend?

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The Long Trip Home

Well, our month in El Norte had ended and it was time to head home. My brother generously offered to take us to the airport in Philadelphia because although there was a bus from the neighboring town, we’d be cutting it close. 

Our little road trip was blissfully uneventful. My brother and I kept up our running commentary of Remember Whens… and when we passed through Allentown, well nothing doing but to have his neat little car play Billy Joel’s ballad. Hmm, things are pretty much the same since ol’ Billy crooned that song! 

I unwisely decided to drink not one, but two cups of coffee and we had to make an emergency pit stop (or two as this old lady bladder wasn’t cutting me any slack) before we arrived, but arrive we did. 

We had enough time before our flight to grab a bite to eat and get checked in. I had weighed the suitcases before we left, both were under 50 pounds, which was a good thing because no one offered to saran wrap or weigh my bags here. The check-in attendant was a lovely girl from Argentina who asked about how we liked Mexico as she had a friend who moved there. This friend had initially hated everything about Mexico, the food, the music, the people but now 3 months into her new life has fallen in love.

We were flagged by the system and she had to manually enter our information. I showed her our documentation and she said everything looked good to go, so we went. Our bags would be sent on to Mexico, no need to pick up them up in Chicago. Getting through the security checkpoint was a breeze. 

We still had some extra time, so we settled in these comfy chairs next to the window overlooking the tarmac. There were places to charge our phones there and we took advantage of those. I may have dozed a bit because the next thing I knew I woke myself up with a giggle which of course made my son giggle. 

The flight was also blissfully uneventful. We arrived in Chicago even a little ahead of schedule. We were shuttled from the plane to a point past the security checkpoint so we didn’t have to remove our shoes again. We had some horrible McDonald’s food. Ugh! There just weren’t many options. 

We had a 4-hour layover and there weren’t many places to sit, so we made do on the benches outside the bathrooms. Have I mentioned that I was never so pleased as I was using the public bathrooms in the U.S. since moving to Mexico? There wasn’t a turnstile to maneuver or an attendant to pay for a stip of toilet paper at the door. The toilets flushed automatically. The sinks, soap dispensers, and hand dryers turned on with a wave of my hand. Talk about POSH! 

About an hour before our flight was due to depart, we wandered down to our gate and found a good seat by the charging station. We were scheduled to fly out at 7:30 arriving in Mexico City at 11:40 pm. Well, that didn’t happen. 

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First, the flight that was coming in was delayed because of storms in the area. That flight was rerouted to Indianapolis. A few hours later, the plane made a second attempt, which failed, and was rerouted to Ohio. 

The day shift crew went home for the day. Substitutes were found, not all of them were Spanish speakers. This caused some angst amongst the half of the passengers that didn’t speak English. One angry man in a red shirt started shouting. I’m surprised he wasn’t approached by security, but maybe they had already gone home too. His gripe was that everything was MENTIRAS (lies) and that everything was in English. 

I understood his frustration however it wasn’t these girls’ fault. There was another incident with a Mexico City fresa (hoity-toity) who was just outright insulting, upset at her inconvenience. She filed a complaint online with the airline. Whatever. We were all inconvenienced.

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A very tired boy still waiting for the flight to board in Chicago.

Personally, I prefer to wait it out when conditions are unsafe to fly in. So wait it out we did. We finally boarded the plane at 12:30 am. Boy, were we exhausted. I have to admit I slept through most of the flight, awakened twice briefly when the flight attendant passed with a flashlight asking if we wanted water. My son was completely unconscious the entire time, which was for the best. He gets antsy on trips. 

We arrived at 5:30 in the morning and went to go through immigration. I had my paper given to me by the powers that be from when we left. My son, being Mexican, wasn’t given any papers. So I made the executive decision to send him through the Mexican National line while I queued up in the Foreigner Line. 

Just before I was to be attended to, I saw that my son was out of the line with a paper that he was trying to fill out. He said that because his passport was foreign (he has a US passport) that the guy told him he had to fill out that same form I had. Umm, no. That didn’t seem right. He wasn’t entering the country as a visitor at all! 

Well, I had him approach the desk with me when it was my turn and explained our situation. The lady stamped my passport again and took my son’s birth certificate. After ascertaining that we lived in Mexico (and that his birth certificate was Mexican) she gave us back everything and sent us on our way. Whew! Needless to say, my son was mighty worried he wasn’t going to be able to get back into Mexico at all!

We picked up our suitcases, which weren’t on the turnstile but lined up alongside. I imagine they had beaten us to Mexico by several hours. We decided we had nothing to declare and bypassed the voluntary x-ray machine completely. 

Upon exiting, several ladies in taxi booths waved us over. I picked one at random and paid $235 pesos for a taxi to the bus station. We left through Salida 9 and our ticket was taken by the attendant there who flagged down a cab for us. The cab driver presented his credentials and our ticket had the cab number written on it. 

Soon enough we were at the bus station. We bought tickets for Moroleon and went to the waiting room to wait. We had missed the 6:30 am bus but were in plenty of time for the 8:40 am bus. We were scheduled to be home by 1 pm. 

That didn’t happen. I must have fallen asleep again because before I knew it, it was 9:30 and we were still in Mexico City. There were several protests of some sort and the roads were closed. Traffic was at a standstill. We waited for 3 hours before we could inch along to a road where we could get off and take an alternate route. 

Then, when we arrived in Celaya, we were told it was the end of the line for that bus. We’d have to wait for another bus and transfer over. That added about 45 minutes to our already tediously long trip.

We didn’t arrive in Moroleon until 6 pm that evening. My husband had taken the day off to pick us up and had been to the bus terminal three times to check for us. So much for planning! We were TIRED and after some quesadillas went to bed.

 

Natural Healing — Mesquite

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If you have ever sheltered under the shadow of a mesquite tree on a hot summer afternoon, you will certainly appreciate at least one aspect that this crooked, spiny, unlovely tree has to offer.

Mesquite also spelled mezquite and known as algarroba, belong to the Prosopis species. There are at least 44 clearly defined species and numerous hybrids, making identification difficult.

The word mesquite comes from the Nahuatl word mizquitl. The invading Spanish dubbed this tree algarrobo because of its similarity to the carob tree they were more familiar with.

In Mexico, all parts of this drought-hardy tree are used. The wood is used for cooking, providing an aromatic, slow smoke that flavors the food. The sweet and nutritious pods are used as a quick chewy snack, fodder for animals and processed into flour. The sap, bark, and leaves from the tree have medicinal value including antioxidant hepatoprotective, hemolytic, anticancer, antibacterial, antifungal, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory activities

Archeological evidence shows that the pods have been used as a food source as far back as 6,500 BCE in Mexico. These pods, depending on the species, are made up of 41% sugar, 35% fiber, and 22% protein. They contain lysine, potassium, manganese, and zinc as well. My mother-in-law said that chewing these regularly will help increase a mother’s milk production. She would know. She had 11 children. Then again, mesquite pods are high in dietary estrogen. Our dairy goats love them as well!

The pods can be dried or roasted, then ground into a flour. This flour could be used to make cakes that once dry would last long enough to provide essential nutrients during drought. The powdered pods can also be mixed with water to make a sweet drink called añapa or sometimes allowed to ferment into chicha.

Mesquite wood has been so aggressively harvested that it is now illegal to cut down live trees, not that those laws are strictly enforced. Although in some areas, most notably in San Luis Potosi, cutting a mesquite tree that has three branches that form a cross is considered sacrilegious.

To treat an irritated stomach, a weak tea can be made from 50 grams of mesquite bark per liter of water. The bark should only be allowed to steep a few minutes before straining. If the tea was meant to treat dysentery, the dose is doubled. The tea coats the stomach and reduces inflammation.

This same weak tea can be used as a gargle for sore throats, bronchitis or mouth sores. Finely chopped leaves and bark can be used as a soothing astringent.

The sap has traditionally been used topically for lip sores and hemorrhoids. To make treat irritated or infected eyes, the sap is added to distilled water, sealed and shaken. When the gum dissolves, it is used as an eyewash. An infusion of mesquite leaves can also be used to make an eyewash.

Apparently, mesquite sap is used in a treatment for in some areas of Mexico as well. Two types of mesquite grow in our area. The pod on the left is unripe. When it ripens, it is a cream and red mottled color. It’s sweet and chewy. The pod on the left is called vina locally and is a favorite of our goats, especially after a brush fire toasts them to a crisp. 

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Natural Healing — Huizache

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La Yacata, being the dry, rocky land that it is, plays host to the huizache. When it flowers in the spring, it can cause allergies, but the benefits of this plant far outweigh the few weeks of sniffling. You also should take care that the long thorns don’t scratch you. In some parts of Mexico, this tree is called espina divina (divine thorn) and with good reason! They are certainly worth a healthy dose of respect in my book. In fact, in many crucifixion reenactments during Semana Santa (Holy Week) Jesus’ crown of thorns is made from huizache branches. 

Huizache (also spelled huisache or guizache) or Sweet Acacia has several botanical names which cause some confusion but the three most common are acacia farnesiana, mimosa farnesiana, and vachellia farnesiana.

The flowers are used to create the perfume Cassie. The sap is used as glue. The bark has long been used for its tannin. A black dye is obtained also from the bark.

Bernardino de Sahagún reported that seed pods were considered aphrodisiac in nature by the indigenous people in Mexico and that flowers of the tree were used for a headache remedy.

The seed pods are antioxidant and topical anti-inflammatory agents. Animals, including cattle, sheep, and goats, that eat seed pods transfer the antioxidant properties to their milk. Our goats love huizache!

Extracts from the seed pods are used to treat dysentery and tuberculous and are also effective in treating cholera.

A mouthwash for sore gums is made with an infusion of leaves, flowers, and stems. A tea decoction made from the same parts of the plant is traditionally prescribed to reduce excess phlegm.

Dried leaves can be applied directly to sores. Vaginal infections can be treated by combining leaves, flowers, and roots simmered to make douche or sitz bath. 

Overall, the huizache is quite a useful plant to have around!

 

Personal History Month

May was Personal History Month and our little SOTB Blogging group had the intention to write about our personal histories, only the month got away from us, so here we are in June trying again.

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Truthfully, this topic worked out really well for me. As you know from last week’s post, I was able to travel to Pennsylvania and visit my family this month. My online jobs allowed me to have a flexible work location as did my son’s online studies.

So here’s a bit of personal history about me. My mom can trace our family history back to England in the 1500s. Our family were Quakers that opposed slavery and left the faith over the issue to move to this area around about the time settlements here were getting settled.

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I grew up just outside a little town called Montgomery along the west bank of the Susquehanna River, population 1,695. It was founded or settled or something in 1783 by John Lawson.  It’s claim to fame was the logging boom. There were a lot of trees that could be sent downriver to other booming metropolises in the early 1800s.

The latest income generating industry in the area is natural gas. Apparently, there are a few pockets of the stuff under the ground which the powers that be are sucking from the earth. I have to admit that the landscape is not what I remember.

With the influx of the gas money, there have been some recent attempts at redevelopment in Montgomery. The downtown buildings have been revamped. The football field wasn’t there when I was growing up. The school (elementary, middle and high school are in the same building) has added a new technology wing. Overall, though, neither the people nor the town changed very much from when I lived here.

There’s nothing quite like being home again. My status as a PA native streamlined the process of getting a new driver’s license. Since I had a license in 1998, well then, with my birth certificate, marriage certificate to document my name change and my expired PA ID (Pennsylvanis Identification), we were good to go. Thank GOD!

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My friend Shannon and I talked each other hoarse every night (and drinking copious amounts of wine). We went yardsaling, rummaged around in the discount stores and drove up and down the backroads that once were so familiar to me.

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I’ve been able to show my son my old haunts and my childhood home. My brother and I tried to outdo ourselves with sharing childhood memories (or traumas depending on who is telling the story) with our children.

I was also able to spend some time with my parents whose health isn’t the best these days. In fact, I spent quite a lot of time this month at the hospital with my mom. 

On the other hand, MAGA hats were on many heads and I edited out the part where I live in Mexico in my what have you been up to recitation. I was glad my son is light enough to pass as a local, and that we have hundreds of years of local history to poo-poo the recent immigrant charges. We were careful not to speak Spanish in public too. It’s not unheard for those too foreign for locals to be murdered in these parts. In fact, this local hate crime was turned into a movie (Shenandoah) with quite a cult following.

So although I enjoyed my time in central PA, the trip was bittersweet for me. I’ll be glad when we are safely home in La Yacata.

Natural Healing — Pochote

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Pochote, Ceiba aesculifolia (Kapok) is also known as apochote, ceiba, puchote, lánta in Chiapas, kuch (Maya) in Yucatán y len-o-ma (Chontal) and Matzu (chinanteco) in Oaxaca.

Once a year, the pochote trees in La Yacata are festooned with huge cotton balls. Every year I tell myself that I’m going to gather them up to stuff some pillows. This year I finally did!

It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped. The trunk of the Ceiba aesculifolia (kapok) is covered in thorns, so climbing is out of the question. The seed pods were mostly out of my reach considering these trees can grow up to 25 meters high. The soft, downy fluff disintegrated and floated away after I touched it.  It’s like trying to catch dandelion puffs.  I managed to get one shopping bag full for my efforts.

Since the fluff is quite a bit, uh, well fluffier than synthetic materials, not only did I make a huge mess trying to stuff a pillow, but my bagful was only enough for one very small pillow. Well, I guess I’ll try again next year when the cotton balls bloom.

This tree has no leaves when it flowers, making it a strange sight. Bats are the primary pollinators as well as moths and hummingbirds. It grows in dry and rocky areas, so it comes as no surprise that La Yacata abounds in them.

As with all things found in nature, the pochote has . In the states of Mexico and Quintana Roo, it is used to induce vomiting. In Yucatan, the fermented bark is used in a wash given to those with sunstroke.

Again, not surprisingly, the cotton-like fluff has been traditionally used for stuffing. It has also been used as tinder for fires and wicks for candles. Recently, this soft material has been found to be effective insulation for refrigerators.

The seeds of the pochote are toasted and eaten in Veracruz. The roots are also edible. Craftsmen make jewelry out of the seed pods and carve houses from the wood.

Traditionally, infusions of the pochote leaves have been used to treat sores, snake bite, and dermatitis. Francisco Hernández de Toledo mentioned the pochote in his collections of works Plantas y Animales de la Nueva Espana, y sus virtudes about plants and animals found in Nueva Spain (Mexico) and their virtues.

There have been no studies so far to ascertain the validity of using pochote leaves on the skin.

Our Trip to PA

It has been 10 years since I have flown anywhere. We’ve become quite the homebodies in La Yacata. So this trip was a tad stressful.

It started with making sure our papers were in order. My passport is good for another 5 years, but my son’s passport expires in July. I did some research and panicked a bit, but found out that he can travel on his passport up until the expiration date. Mexico does not require 6-month padding like some countries. Besides, he would be returning to Mexico as a Mexican citizen, not a US citizen. It never hurts to be prepared though.

So then onto the airport adventure…

When we entered the building in CDMX, a young lady asked if we wanted to have our bag wrapped and weighed. I did need to know how much it weighed but I wasn’t sure what the wrapping was all about. She said it would be a good option since we had to change planes. As our suitcase wasn’t new, I decided to go ahead with it.

She saran wrapped the heck out of our poor suitcase. The wheels had been damaged on the bus trip from Queretaro, so now the weight was unbalanced and wheeling it around was more difficult. Oh well. We only had to check it in and be done with it.

So we headed to the United check-in area. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do since I didn’t have any actual tickets, just a confirmation number. The young lady at the post asked for my documentation. I had no idea what she meant. She asked again what the airline had given me to enter the country. So I said I was a permanent resident in Mexico and my son was a citizen. She grabbed two forms and handed them to us.

We then proceeded to the machine that looked like an automatic teller. I entered my confirmation number and it printed out my tickets. The guy behind the counter took our bag. Overall, it was a little stressful but not overly so.

We headed to the food court to eat and fill out those forms. I went to Subway and stood in line. While I was waiting, a devout Muslim and his Mexican companion fell into line behind me. The Muslim spoke English which the Mexican companion was translating for the food preparer. He asked that she change her gloves and not cut the bread since the knife could have been used to cut pork. The Mexican didn’t translate that last part so I jumped in and told the sandwich preparer not to cut the bread seconds before it would have happened. Scared the bejeezus out of her, but the tuna on white was not contaminated with pork residue.

After that bit of stress, my son and I filled out those forms while we ate. We weren’t sure where we needed to go next, so we asked the cleaning lady. She wasn’t sure either. We wandered around a bit and saw people going down a long hallway. So that’s where we went.

My son’s bag triggered a search. We had brought Oxy cleaning face pads with us and the searcher had never seen such an item. It was eventually approved and we headed through the duty-free zone. We didn’t need any of that crap, so wound our way to the gates.

We sat and people watched for a while. One passenger, Alejandro, had been paged at least a dozen times. We speculated on that, especially when this wild-haired older man was driven at high speed down the hall in one of those airport dune buggies. We thought perhaps the duty-free alcohol samples had gotten the best of him. Several minutes later, a rather heavy-set man sprinted by. We imagined he was the assistant and didn’t rate the dune buggy ride. We had a good chuckle.

Our gate was changed because of another plane that arrived late, but it was in the same area. The pre-boarding check was called. My son’s paperwork was just dandy, however, I needed my form stamped by immigration. I hadn’t seen any sort of immigration check-point, but back we went. It was at least a 1 / 2 mile from where we were at a sort of round kiosk.

The bored attendant stamped my paper and sent me on my way. This time we jumped on the moving sidewalk to make up for the lost time. Wasn’t there a video game that had those in them? We didn’t have time for any of these shenanigans though.

Regardless, we got just as the boarding began and everything was hunky dory. The flight was slightly turbulent but uneventful. Passengers clapped when we landed in Chicago. I filled out a customs declaration form on the plane but no one ever asked for it.

Then we had to pick up our bag and go through customs. We stood by the turnstile as the baggage handler tossed our suitcase into the air. It was rather worse for wear but the saran wrapped kept it together. We checked the bag and headed to the customs kiosk. Our passports were scanned and our faces were photographed. We handed the paperwork to the clerk and headed to the front door.

I wasn’t sure what we had to do since we needed to head to another terminal. A guy in a reflective yellow vest sent us to a tent to wait for a shuttle to the other terminal. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to get off at terminal one or two. A flight attendant on board the shuttle helped me out there.

Then we had to check in at the United counter again, get in line and go through security. This took longer than anticipated. We were behind three different families with limited English skills and babies in strollers. Shoes off, food out of the bags, nothing in pockets, laptops exposed, voila. I even got a “good” from the cranky security guy on my article arrangement in the bin.

Then we had to get into this airlock to get scanned. All of this was new to me. It seems it zeros in on bulges. My sports bra sent up a bulge signal and I got the patdown. I suppose it could be worse?

Then we went the wrong way and spend a frantic 20 minutes looking for our departing gate. The flight was delayed anyway because of electrical problems. There was a Starbucks by the gate and we took advantage of a caffeine hit. Did you know you could get bottled water from Fiji for $5?

A rather large group of high school students were on our flight. Most of them went through by running their phones over the scanner. We were old school and had paper boarding passes. All this new technology!

This flight was equipped with personal TVs. The controls were on the hand rests which I didn’t know and kept inadvertently changing my son’s channels. The safety demonstration was done right on the TV too. The flight was quite bumpy. My son said it wasn’t, but they stopped serving drinks at one point and told the flight attendants to have a seat.

The Philadelphia landing was rough. Nobody clapped. Maybe that’s just a Mexican thing?

We headed out to pick up our bag which would have been battered beyond all recognition except it was the only one with the blue saran wrap. We must have walked another mile or so before we reached the pick-up area. My little brother arrived after a brief wait to pick us up.

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Natural Healing — Chayote

It’s Eat Your Vegetables Day! So let’s talk about my husband’s favorite vegetable, the chayote!

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Chayote (Sechium edule) is also called the Mexican vegetable pear,  mirliton squash or choyotl. It comes from the Nahuatl word chayohtli and is thought to be one of the earliest cultivated plants in Mesoamerica.

Once the plant takes root, it needs very little care. It will continue to grow and produce fruit for years. Not only is the fruit edible, but the root, stem, seeds and leaves are edible as well. All edible parts are useful in the treatment of cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

The chayote has components that are effective in the fight against cancer. It is rich in amino acids, vitamin C and antioxidants.

The root, which is tuberous and cooked like a potato or yam, has been shown to be successful in treating kidney inflammations. The root, leaves and stem are high in fiber and have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels. The shoots reduce obesity and are good for the liver.

Traditionally, an infusion made from 3 to 5 leaves boiled in a liter of water is drunk daily to dissolve kidney stones and reduce arteriosclerosis. It is quite diuretic. The leaves also are antibacterial and can be used as a poultice to dress wounds.

I’ve seen people eat boiled chayote like you would an apple, however, I have to admit, chayote has a flavor so mild that it’s not my favorite squash by a long shot. It is, however, a staple in our bone broth and my husband makes this absolutely delicious dish with chayote, squash, tomato, onion and garlic served over rice that I adore.

 

Traveling to Tepotzotlan

This month my son and I have been doing a bit of traveling.

Our first stop was Tepotzotlán, Estado de Mexico. We took the Primera Plus bus from Moroleon to Queretaro to Tepo. Tepotzotlán means “among humpbacks” in Nahuatl referring to the surrounding hills rather than the inhabitants. The Aztec used a humpback person on top of a hill to represent the town of Tepotzotlán in a glyph. Neat huh?

But, back to the present day. The newest thing in bus travel is free Wifi and charging plugs. We couldn’t find the charging port on either bus. My son even crawled around under the seats. Nada. The Wifi was not as helpful as I had hoped either. I had imagined I could get some writing work done while traveling and that didn’t happen. The WiFi, when it was available, was limited at best. Good thing we brought some books to read.

When we arrived in Queretaro, we had to change buses. We pulled into the last stall and had to race down to the very first stall in 5 minutes. Then there were some additional security measures that we hadn’t known about.

We had to check our suitcase at the desk inside first instead of just handing it over to the driver. Then we had to go through the carry on bag inspection and the metal detector. I’m actually not sure that the metal detectors worked though.

Finally, we boarded the bus with less than 2 minutes to spare. Since we hadn’t had time to pick up something to eat there, we accepted the sandwiches and juice the bus company provides. It was rather less than delicious, but it did stop the ol’ stomach from growling.

The trip was uneventful if slightly longer than promised. Before we arrived at our destination, we ran into traffic. At first, we thought it was an accident and although we passed a demolished red sports car and a tractor-trailer on the road, we were routed around it without even braking.

The reason for the delay was the taxi strike. Uber has cut into the taxi drivers business and they aren’t happy about it. So taxi after taxi drove by us without passengers in protest.

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We arrived at the bus terminal finally. Daisy came to pick us up. If you remember, Daisy is my online friend that I met in the South of the Border Sisters Facebook support group. Although we’ve been buddies for years, this was our first in-person meeting. Our visit was all that I hoped it would be and more!

We had such a great time visiting with Daisy and her family in Tepo. Can you believe that the area was settled by the Otomi between 2500 BCE and 100 CE then became part of the Teotihuacan Empire? There were some conflicts, including the assassination of the female ruler Ehuatlicuetzin (whose name means la que tiene faldas de cuero–she who has leather skirts) in 1372. Eventually, the Aztec empire extended its domain and absorbed the town. Bet you didn’t know that did you?

Anyway, Daisy’s husband cooked some meat and nopales in honor of our visit. We got to drive around town and see the sights and the family compound. Daisy told us that the area has become quite industrialized in recent years. Shipping companies and factories have taken over what was open fields. Daisy and I blah blah blahed the whole time! It’s good to have someone to talk to once in a while. 

In the morning, Daisy’s husband drove us to the airport for the next stage of our trip.

Natural Healing — Ruda

 

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Ruda (ruta graveolens) came to Mexico with the Spanish priests. Branches of this plant were used during mass to sprinkle the holy water about. Mexican curanderas have adopted this practice for their healing sessions. Branches of ruda are used in limpias (cleansings). The curandera (healer) will use this aromatic plant to sweep the body of what ails it.

Ruda has been shown to have an antiproliferative effect on cancer cells. It has antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant value.  A wash for sores and wounds is made from 20 grams of fresh ruda per liter of water. A poultice can be made with freshly crushed leaves.

It is an organic insecticide and herbicide. In Mexico, you will often find ruda by the window to keep out insects or sprigs kept under pillows for the bedbugs. Ruda is often used as a treatment for lice as well. An infusion of 35 grams of fresh ruda per liter or water is made then massaged into the scalp. The head is covered for an hour, then the hair is washed.  

Apparently, it will also deter cats, although my cat doesn’t seem to realize that and lays haphazardly on whatever section of the garden is the coolest despite numerous rue plants spaced randomly among the other herbs.

A tea made from ruda is sometimes used by parteras (midwives) to increase the strength of uterine contractions when labor has gone on for some time. Ruda was also used in infusions to end an unwanted pregnancy during the first few weeks. A tea to bring on menstruation was brewed with 1 / 2 teaspoon of ruda, albabaca (basil), epazote (American wormseed) and yerba buena (spearmint). This aspect of the herb means that pregnant and lactating women should not use ruda in any form.

Traditionally, ruda is used to treat earache. Simply soak a cotton ball in warmed vegetable oil infused with ruda and place it in the ear. Crushed leaves are often used on the forehead to treat headaches caused by tension.

In addition to the warning against the use during pregnancy, excessive doses of ruda can be toxic. Dermal application should also be done with care because the oils in the plant contain furanocoumarins which sensitize the skin to light and can cause severe blistering on some people.