MEXICO part 3

Yes that was quite the trip, we had a load to go to a little Island off Cancun during this time, Isla de Cozumel and we were there for 10 days waiting to off load, doing nothing, so Cap. let us use the jet boat to go ashore and we went ..every day !
It was a vacation for me as the boys all wanted to eat ashore along with their beers !! The one thing that stands out in my mind was the migration if these little blue crabs they had, man you couldn't walk without stepping on one, cute little buggers but a pain in the foot so to speak !!
we would visit this one bar that had a beautiful huge parrot about 15 years old that hated men and loved women so I got to hold him, this one time though this guy approached not knowing this and the parrot just about drove his toe nails into my arm, I had to quickly shake him off ...poor thing ..but he came back once settled.
We left Mexico with heavy hearts when our stint was up and flew back to Canada. The second engineer was totally upset as he thought the ship would be going back also, but it was sold to Pemex. He had planned to fill the pipes in the engine room with grass, bring it back to Canada and sell it !! The boy smoked too much !!
I have an infinity for this place and I don't know why, I was there long enough to fall in love with the "real" thing... not the tourist areas,  which I can't stand, they are so different from the real Mexico, it is a little dangerous there now but only near the borders. Mexico has 29 world heritage sites, 62 ethnic groups, 30,000 archaeological sites, plus they are number one in tourist sites and number two in luxury tourism worldwide. I will be going back.
I was accepted to teach English at the Heslington Institute in Tehuacan , which is a beautiful city of 250 thousand people nestled between two mountain ranges about an hour south east of Puebla ( a world heritage site) Last June I went into Halifax to take the course for teaching English to foreign students so when I do go at least I'll have some background.
Tehuacan has a year round moderate temperature of approximately 78 degrees ( 25 C ) and a dry climate. A sought after area by geologists and horticulturists ( huge cactus grow there ). Also has one of the best mineral waters in the world and numerous hot springs...hotels are about 22.00 US for a 2-3 star which are quite beautiful in Mexico with the old courtyards and huge fans.
I would like to take a month and travel from the Silver Cities down through Tehuacan and over to Belize and maybe up to Progresso on the Yucatan...where we spent a lot of time. It would be fun to see it again. It would also be fun to take the air conditioned TV equipped buses between the cities and the "chicken buses" for off road excursions, I love chicken buses !!
Next year I will take a month off hopefully and head down to cruise through that beautiful country !

ONE OF THESE DAYS !!

 I have not been here for awhile ! The weather has been so great that I walk in the evenings instead of blogging , but I see I must finish the story of the trip to Mexico.... : )

MEXICO - MARYJANE- PYRAMIDS !! Part 2

We have now arrived in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico ...totally saited on flying fish ! I am in awe...this place is unreal, nothing like the tourist ports I was later to discover. The smells that assulted our noses were scrumptious ! and we headed for the nearest restaurant and some food. For me the " Cameronies ( shrimp) were unbelievable delicious and huge. I never stopped eating them the whole time I was there. We ate from the vendors in the street , everything;  not ever worried about anything, we drank bottled water however. None of the crew ever got sick ...well ...unless it was of their own making : )
We sent the Canadian crew back to Canada and just kept the Cdn.Officers, Cap of course, Chief and 1st mate, Chief and 1st Engineer and myself as Chief Cook. Then we brought on our Mexican crew to fill out the rest of the positions. The first experience ashore was something else, I was shocked at the living conditions, it was really sad, mother's sleeping in the streets with babes, elderly men with no legs surfing the streets on boards with 3 inch wheels, pitiful, I cried off and on for a month , it was that sad.

We spent the first couple of weeks in port , there was necessary paperwork to be done, name changed on the ship. We had sailed her under "Seaway Trader"  coming down, now she was to be the "Patricia 11" contracted to Pemex ( the one and only oil company in all of Mexico , Gov. owned ) We got to go ashore every night so we would hang out in the local restaurant on the corner. At first there was a lot of finger pointing at me as my hair was light from so much sun and I was the only white woman around.
There was always a bunch of kids around begging and I kind of took to a little guy who wasn't more than 5, he wore the same clothes everyday for two weeks...so sad. I bought him a couple new t-shirts and shorts and took his old clothes and threw them. I wanted to take him on the ship as a steward in training but they couldn't let me, he was too young.
I made a point of always collecting change from the officers before I went ashore ( wasn't worth anything to us) and they just threw it in their desk drawers. Once ashore I would give it to the kids, it made a happy bunch of children !
I was sad to leave my little friends but we were ready for our job , taking oil from refineries up river and delivering offshore to the super tankers. As the days turned into weeks we became accustomed to the different ports.
The rivers were horridly polluted and people lived on them , swam and washed in the water and fished , unbelievable !! One of the ports had a sulfer plant and because we had no air conditioning, we had to keep the windows open. The sinks would be coated with a yellow dust all the time. Cap and I were concerned about inhaling this stuff but what could we do. We were working 3 months on , 3 off which meant 7 days a week but Captain Bunker was a good man and he and I decided that we would have a deck party at the end of every month. The crew loved these parties, the officers would challenge the deck hands to all kinds of contests. The one however they shouldn't have challenged was the " jalepeno eating contest ". Mexicans can eat those things by the dozen . Ray was our second engineer, as crazy as they come , and stoned most of the time, he was one of these people who could work while toasted ;  he would go ashore and buy these huge packages of grass all wrapped up in banana leaves, measuring 4 inches think and a foot square. They would make stogies as big as cigars. The first contest with the jalepeno eating was a disaster for the Canadian boys the next day. Being the cook, I knew better. They however, were challenged and you know what happens when you challenge a man ? Needless to say there were some laughable outbursts as the peppers did their work !
Cap and I would do the grocery order every week or two depending on where we were. The markets we used were the same as the locals used , so it wasn't surprizing to see anything out of the ordinary. The thing that bothered me the most was the sale of turtles for food. They would drill a hole in the back of the shell and tie them together. Me being me, decided I would start saving turtles and buy them all up, so I would carry them away and let them go. This went on for weeks and then one day Captain Bunker started chortling just after I let a new bunch off in the ditch. I looked at him , I can still see those merry eyes of his and he said      " you know Joyce , the kids figured out the first day what you were doing so they've been following you, picking up the turtles and selling them back to the market !! We laughed the whole way back to the ship.I kept doing it anyway, what the heck !
Cayaso was our 3rd engineer from Guatemala, a true gentleman, a tiny man, well read, quiet with a quick wit and about 63 years old then. What we found most amazing about him was his ability to get all the young women hanging off him when he went ashore. Most of the time we were at anchor so we had to use a boat going back and forth. About 11 oclock , there would be Cayaso, surrounded by 4 or 5 young ladies arriving back to ship to drop him off. This went on the whole time we were there, the guys would just shake their heads wondering.
About 7 weeks into our stint, we had a week off docked at the mile long wharf in Progresso. This beautiful town wasn't far from Merida, one of the oldest cities on the Yucatan. Captain Bunker gave us the weekend off so we went into town , got rooms at a wonderful old 2 star hotel ( which are the best in Mexico ) From there the boys decided it was time to party, being the only woman , I had to follow. We visited everything we could, tasted everything we could taste. Then we decided to go to Ushmal about an hour from Merida and see the pyramids at night .They had an amazing sound and light show and from the benches overlooking the courtyard you had a great view of everything. Off in the distance a storm flashed lightning behind the pyramids and the thunder rolled. Each doorway would light up as a King or minion would speak, the lights and sounds were fantastic, either that, or we were so stoned anything looked and sounded good.: ) to be continued.....

MEXICO ON AN OIL TANKER - Part 1

I think my past life is more interesting ....for now anyway...so this is the story of my trip on a Canadian Oil Tanker to Mexico to work for a few months in 1987.
At the time my boyfriend was the Chief Mate of the Seaway Trader, an oil tanker owned by a NB company. She was a 75 year old 375 foot rust bucket suffering I know,  from metal fatigue
.
I joined her on the Great Lakes winter of 86 , much to the consternation of dear Captain Bunker, a curmudgeon of an elderly English sea Captain ! ' Women do not belong on ships ' ! he said .......of course the first thing I realized was that the Cap LOVED food, so being brilliant of mind, I asked the Chief Mate to give the Chef the weekend off and let me cook...  the Chef was estatic and drank the whole weekend ! ( biggest mistake he ever made) but that took care of the "women don't belong on ships "crap !!
Captain Bunker and I became good friends, I eventually had a very special place for that ole chap in my heart.
We spent many an afternoon passing up and down through the locks , bouncing off the walls on occasion as Cap, though a sweetie, sometimes screwed up on his maneuvers : ) all the while chatting about world affairs and the like. He seemed surprized that a woman knew stuff he knew, he was also surprized that I knew as much as I did about weather. Once I explained to him that I had helped the Chief Mate boyfriend with his captains exams , he understood.
We came down from the lakes in January, got stuck in the ice and had to be broke out, then proceeded on to Halifax. Once there,  we had a few days grace, hit all the bars then got the call for a refit and contract to Mexico ..Wooo hooo...
Shelburne would be our refit port so off we go,  me ...totally sea sick, as we were now out in the ocean sailing : ) . Finally  ! good old Shelburne...for a few weeks. We had to be in Mexico by the 19th of March and the Company figured it would take us 21 days ...ha...
Back to the Chef...the poor dear made a huge mistake by taking that weekend off...HUGE...the Captain decided he would rather have "the woman" as his cook : ) so I ended up not only with a trip to Mexico but a job to boot !!
Off we go, transderm behind the ear ,and enough stores for 21 days ( cheap company cut her to the wire : )
doing fine till we hit a storm off Cape Hatteras, and I found out what it meant for a ship to corkscrew !
What fun , the galley was aft, officers quaters forward. Now...in order to get to quarters with 15 ' seas breaking over the decks, the mates had to tie a large rope from aft to forward so we could get back and forth. Not a problem ! we would just time the last wave and run like hell !
The real fun was feeding my crew...yup...so it was sandwiches for a couple of days and in order to feed the boys I  had to get a couple of the crew in the galley to brace me so I could make them. We had everything tied down so nothing came snaking through the air to decapitate anyone.
Finally we make out of the storm just past the coast of North Carolina...and immediately we break down ! Apparently all that jigging around  really stressed some of out machinery. Its a wonder the ship hadn't broken apart from metal fatique !!
So the Chief mate and chief engineer take a lifeboat and head to shore to get a part machined.
Captain Bunker ; not being one to have his crew stay idle, decided to have a life boat drill....
The Captain and I positioned ourselves on the bridge deck to watch over the precise maneuvers of the second engineer and the deck crew as they prepared for the drill.
Everything in order ; the second mate winches the lifeboat out over the side where it immediately lets go its chains and falls into shark invested water : )
If you ever wanted to see an excited Captain and some freaked out deck hands ...this was the opportunity...over goes the life savers and up comes the boys, sputtering and cursing like banshees...I had to go below to the cabin so I could crack up in quiet : )

We lost 3 days messing around off the coast of Carolina getting our part machined and put back together before we can carry on to Mexico.
The weather is now warm and I am able to catch some rays, we have birds travelling with us, they stay on board as we are so far from land. Then the porpoises join us and ride the wave our bulbous nose pushes forward, playing , jumping around , they are so beautiful and stay with us for hours.
The Bermuda triangle was something we had talked about and wondered if we would get through unscathed , we did , nothing happened : )
3 days from our port of Coatzacoalcos, Mexico , we run out of food. I had been telling Cap we were getting low and now I'm down to a bucket of salt herring. Not good !!
But low and behold , the good Lord provideth ! and along came the flying fish !! Every morning the decks were full of these lovely fish who just flew in right off the tips of the waves. I told the crew...boys you bring me as many as you can and I'll cook them up as best I can. Well , I can tell you,....I could easily have written a book after that trip on " 101 Ways To Cook Flying Fish " !! but my crew survived and were happy ; ) to a point.
to be continued....

Growing up stuff and grown up stuff...

Was never a morning  kid ....get out of a warm bed on a winter school morning, ran down stair, stuck my feet in the oven of the kitchen wood stove and went back to sleep. Now I am a morning person.

Killing bats with a broom in the attic on rainy days, skinning rabbits with brother Sandy, putting on our swim suits and running around in a summer rain storm. Having him beat the blood suckers off the back of my legs when we swam in the cove at Welchtown Lake. Walking with Sandy back and forth to school listening to him sing.

Sitting in the hay loft on boring Saturdays with a twenty-two , shooting rats when they stuck their heads out..It made me one heck of a good shot, now I don't like guns.

Cutting snakes in half to free the hop toads.

Hauling a team of oxen during Shelburne exhibition in the girls haul and later in the Ladies haul and once using Sandy's oxen, and beating his percentage !, the teamsters really ribbed him about that one .

After school, in the warm spring afternoons,sleeping under a pine tree half way across the Welchtown road until dad picked me up on his way by with the log truck, scaling logs on Welchtown Lake and running the logs ( log rolling ) to stay on .

Going to bed fully dressed In order not to miss out on going with dad back to camp on the weekends with the oxen.

I was usually always in charge of the game “Cowboys and Indians” in the neighborhood and was really pissed when my brother Sandy ,got the beautiful double holster guns for Christmas and I got the single gun with a canteen. !!

I bet 10 bucks with my Uncle Charlie who owned a pig house that I could save a runt pigs life, one winter night I took one home under my jacket because Charlie said it was going to die. ( I did save its life but never got paid ) I loved that Porky pig, even cried when they castrated him.... I learned about injustice when I sold that big hog for 50 bucks believing that they were keeping him for a pet too.... kids will believe anything.

I got to see a hurricane rip huge 15 foot sheets of tin off Uncle Charlie's barn roof; and another time watch five sets of lights (alien space ships ) pass over Uncle Harry's house. : )

I remember how shocked I was when Grampy Howard died, (I didn't know people died till then.) It took years before I understood that some day I would die.

My brother Sandy let me drive dads new Massey Ferguson tractor , which I ran into Charlie's pig house roof, Sandy got the blame for letting me drive it ......damage to tractor ......about a grand....roof was fine.

I wanted to be a vet for the longest time but we couldn't afford college..... I used to keep snakes in shoe boxes in the shop loft until one bit me, then I threw them all out.

I thank my father, bless his heart , for instilling in me that I was a tough little girl, and I could do anything.....!

I thank my mother , bless her heart , for having such tenacity in anything she did and for being such a darn good cook !

Uncle Charlies kids had a piebald horse, who was crazy. I was riding him down the lane, full gallop when he stopped dead in his tracks, threw me over his head and me landing on the dirt road, stunned. I heard the kids saying “is she dead” as I was coming around. I got my wind and got back on that miserable nag.

Charlies oldest boy was practiceing with the shotgun one day, pointed towards out house, good thing it was a distance because as I opened the porch door the pellets were hitting the screen.

My girlfriends pierced my ears by numbing them with ice...I was 13 and remember the needle going through.........sounded like a knife through cardboard.

We used to cut each other's  hair with razor blades in the bathroom at school.

It wasn't until I had a rare cancer in 1991 and survived , that I realized that material things don't mean a dam thing, they really don't .

I lost one of my sons in 2001 and with that ....a terrible hidden feeling of emptiness pervades my whole body on a daily basis and will until the day I die. This I know to be true.

With age comes the willingness to accept people for who they are (though at times its hard and you just want to kick some in the butt ! ) and of course me understanding me, and knowing there are times when some people want to kick my butt ! That's just too bad : ) .

I love to laugh more than anything, cook up a storm, go off on adventures, hang out with true friends and sometimes just spend time alone (keeps me centered)

I love small towns to live in and big cities to visit.

I love being over 50 years old, there is a freedom and understanding that comes with this age.

If there is ever an underground group formed to shoot convicted pedophiles I will probably be on the board and have the best and biggest hand gun.

My feelings about legalizing grass ? Why not ? just about everyone I have known in my life has smoked it , and thats a lot of people ....yet I know none who are addicted and most; including myself who just don't bother with it anymore or occasionally take a puff if offered.. Actually I know more people with drinking problems ! so there you go !!

I don't know what I would do without my very best non human friends , Maddy and Jackson, and my human friends , Kimmie, Monk,  Char,  and the rest of the "bush women" of Ohio.

I believe the worst thing that could happen to you ,(other than losing a child), is dying regretting that you didn't do something. .....so whatever your thinking and whatever the dream “ just get it done " !

I am totally of the belief that the human race should become extinct in order to save every other life form on this planet. And that thought greatly saddens me.

My Brother Sandy.....

Why doesn't time heal when you lose a loved one? I have these bursts of energetic bawling every once in awhile , and I feel so sad, so utterly sad without my brother here to talk to. I just want to look into those warm eyes of his, hear him laugh,and tell a joke or a story,  just to feel his presence,  knowing he is there for me to call and talk to, or run up to Charles's pit , see if he's around. Of course being here in the Arctic,  it would be the phone calls.
When I went to Alberta I called him a fair bit because he was my anchor to home, to my childhood, he was always that, always the tie to the past. He was solid, a presense that I just adored.
We spent all our time together as kids, Sandy was a year older, we always walked to school together, he always got me through the tough times, like talking me across the bridge when the river was so high that the water lapped across the boards, talked me down out of pine trees when I went so high that I scared myself. Yea he was the man.
I remember the 3 mile walks home from school, he was always singing, and always walked with his chin up and a bounce in his step, those little traits continued on through out his life and later with an added confidence, he walked that same road till his death.
I remember him protecting me when our two older brothers were fighting and scared me , and I would cry, I remember when we got a home made beer from under the wood house step ( where dad 'hid" them ) and had our first swig and got tipsy....... I remember when we rolled up cigarettes of pine spills and tried to smoke them..... and challenged each other on the easter egg hunts to see who got the most....the trips to " Mary's old house" to see what we could salvage, sneaking down to Uncle Harry's after dark to steal grapes off the vines...the walks down to the lake to swim in the cove....the times he would beat blood suckers off the backs of my legs with a stick...skinning rabbits we caught in our snares...building tunnels in the hay mow using the bales of hay.....and the time we baby sat for our cousins down the lane and got into Grampys desk and his sherry and chocolates.....the time he got yelled at for letting me drive the new Massey Fergason tractor and running it into Uncle Charlie's pig house roof , causing over a thousand dollars in damage... going to Don grovestines store to buy our new jeans ( Levi's)for exhibition...later on  his talks to me when my first husband and I were breaking up...his advice was to stay, work it out, but it was too late that talk, to-day I look back and see how right he was and know why he had a marriage that lasted well over 40 years...... yea, he was a big part of my child hood, a big part of my life...always there when I needed him.... and now he's gone.

THE NEWS

Time is passing fast here in this unforgiving land, it is February already. We had planned to be here another year, but the spirits have intervened again and the plan has changed. We are leaving in August for Toronto, not one of my favourite places mind you,  but I am assured we will not be downtown ! And we will have a yard : ) and maybe I can grow some greens : )
Though I would have not minded another year here ; I look forward to moving as I can fly home on long weekends and see my pups and my son and grandchildren. And hopefully my grandson Patrick will come visit from Alberta or vice versa.
It will be such a treat to see my sister, brother ,Kimmie,Char, Monk and the rest of the gang. I promised my brother Karl that I would bring Bison and Musk Ox burger's for a big Bar-B-Q !!