EFM: Elated For Milestone

Jan. 5 seems like a long time ago. But back then, about six and a half months ago, EF'M made its first appearance on the Internet. On this day in July, we celebrate the 100th post.

Traditionally, television shows would take the 100th episode off and just go through a clip-reel of past season highlights. But not here. No, sir. Nothing but new material.

In the spirit of celebration, I'll provide recount of Friday night - our first night out on the town in Hermosillo.

It all began innocent enough. We went out with a group of six other Americans to see a movie at the new theater in the new mall, only months old. It is a VIP cinema, so all of the seats are leather recliners, and they provide a wait staff to take food and drink orders.

An okay movie and just an okay overall experience. But at the price of less than $9 per ticket, I don't think I'll ever be able to attend a movie in the States again. Not even a matinee.

The other interesting part was watching an American movie - "Knight and Day," or in Mexico, "Encuentro Explosivo," which definitely is not a literal translation, though I give them credit for coming up with a better, more appropriate title - with Spanish subtitles. My Spanish is beyond bad, but even I could pick up on some of the unintended humor provided by the brief, simplified subtitles. For example, every curse, which pretty much was just "shit" was translated as "diablos." Diablos, of course, means "devils." Also, through out the entire movie, an incredulous Cameron Diaz is constantly saying "Oh my God." Translation: "cielo" or "heavens." But otherwise, I could see how watching enough movies and television with Spanish subtitles could be a helpful way to improve my Spanish.

Moving along, at this point, about half of the group called it a night, while the rest of us went out to a restaurant near the Consulate aptly called Casa Centenaria (a terrible Web site, by the way). Aptly named because of how it coincides so neatly with this my 100th posting. I couldn't have planned this myself.

The food was good, and for American standards, very inexpensive. I have been aching to have some authentic Mexican mole, but I probably should have stuck with this region's specialty and ordered a steak. That I will do next time.

But what really makes this place a gem is the atmosphere, which they fail to promote on the Web site. It was a little warm, but we sat in the walled-in, outdoor patio section, where they had a live jazz band, which was really good, especially the drummer. And I don't particularly care for jazz. And when they were taking breaks, they had a large screen projection of American music videos, which was mostly 70s and 80s rock. The highlight was a Muppets rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." This is required viewing.

Casa Centenaria also has an incredible selection of cocktails that always came out beautiful, as you can see them in Natalie's hand. I stuck to beer, however, because I got burned at the theater trying to order a beer, or at least what I thought was a beer that I had never tried before, and instead I got a beer-clam juice-tomato juice cocktail. Yuck!

Now it is starting to get late, and a few more of group head home leaving us with Natalie, myself, and one of our neighbors and we decide to go find a club. He took us to a relatively new place he had been wanting to check out, so we went to Classico.

Ladies get in free, and there was a 100-peso (12 pesos = $1, approximately) for the men, and we all got patted down and Natalie's purse was checked. The place was fairly dead, but due to the no cover situation, the women greatly outnumbered the men. And while I'm a married man, I don't mind saying more single American men need to visit Sonora.

There was a mixture of American and Latino music and is another place I'm sure we will go to again. The people were so friendly to us, especially one couple that came over and started talking to us in English (though the music was so loud the man might as well have been speaking in Spanish). He apologized for the club being empty saying Hermosillo usually isn't this boring but there was a big event going on this weekend at San Carlos, a beach a little more than an hours drive away. Then later in the night he tried to improve my poor dancing when I reminded him I'm a gringo. "There is no white here," he said. When you consider the current climate of American-Mexican relations with the Arizona racist approach to curbing illegal immigration, the Hermosillians I've met have earned high marks in civility.

But like all good things, the night had to come to an end at 2 a.m. when things close. And post number 100 is in the books. Here is to hoping I don't get canceled before post 200.

Internet Withdrawal

So we made it. It is as hot as advertised in Hermosillo.

It's way too early to comment on the city as I've seen very little thus far. Thursday, the day of our arrival, was filled with a long drive south through Mexico, which really didn't look too different than from southern New Mexico and southern Arizona. By the way, the scenery in the southern part of those states can be very pretty - from a distance. Once you are in the middle of the brush, it isn't so attractive. But then you look further down the road and see the mountains, and it looks pretty again. And then you get there, and it is all brush. So the scenery is pretty from a distance. Perhaps that should be their mottos - "Southern New Mexico and Southern Arizona, Pretty from a Distance."

The biggest difference on the drive are the topes, which roughly translates as "hazardous, mountainous speed bumps on the highway." The highway is a dangerous drive not just because there is the threat of cartel hooligans, but because there are some hazardous turns, no shoulders, and the topes, which are even more dangerous at night.

After the drive, we reached our home, which was an overwhelming experience. There were a few Americans there from the office to greet us as well as a few Friends Supporting Nicely (FSNs) who unloaded our air freight (EF'M no longer recognizes the term UAB) in our living room. Lots of activity as God's Servent Overseas (GSO, who also was the one who escorted us from the border, not the secruity officer as I falsely reported before) explained the security features; Tiffy was running all over the place; boxes were being unloaded; and, oh yeah, I was taking in the new home. It is a great home though - a huge step-up from the couple of one-bedroom apartments we've lived in. I'll write more on our home later.

Everyone then left as we unloaded our car, got cleaned and then went out with most of the American officers for tacos. I feel a little guilty because we are surrounded by tacos, which I like, but not nearly as much as others might.

I was busy all day Friday unpacking, and then we attended a baby shower for one of the FSNs and had more tacos. Saturday was spent grocery shopping and picking up a few other odds and ends. And finally, Sunday, today, I got a taste of the Internet.

The biggest change thus far has been the lack of Internet. It isn't just about blogging, either (sorry faithful readers). I miss e-mail. I miss reading sports columns. I really miss sports in general. I miss updating my fantasy baseball roster (though my team seems to be doing fine without me).

And now that I'm in Mexico, the Internet will be playing an even greater role in my life as it will serve as a phone as well. I plan to Skype more with my family and friends. I'm going to hook up a Magic Jack to do work.

But alas, we are still some time away from getting the Internet to our home. Currently, I'm relying on the bread crumbs that fall from the tables of other American diplomats and their generosity to muster up enough time to put this blog entry together.

I hope this update is enough to hold you over for a little bit, as I'll likely go back into hibernation for a few days (or longer, gasp) until we get the Internet.

Our Luggage is Here...So Where Are We?

NOGALES, Ariz. - So I lied yesterday. You get one more scintillating posting before we find ourselves on foreign soil.

Natalie is spending the morning doing some consultation work with the Nogales Border Control while I use my remaining hours in our motel room in this bustling city. Well, by bustling, I mean deserted. Last night, we represented half of the rooms booked in this motel. It is kind of depressing.

Though they still served us a free hot breakfast this morning. A woman arrived to work for one hour (for $6) and as we approached the lobby, she asked if we wanted ham or sausage with our eggs. Meat and eggs? I was expecting an old toaster and individually wrapped bagels like at the La Quintas.

We said yes to the ham, and then she surprised us with eggs, ham, sausage, hash browns and toast to go with our coffee and juice. That was all free, though given the fact that we are on a per diem, which we've been way under, and she was nice and working for so little, we felt obliged to leave a generous tip with her.

When I found out we were crossing at Nogales, they might as well have told me we were crossing at La-La Land, as I have never heard of this place and had no idea what to expect. My impressions was this city's last economic "boom" occurred in the 1970s, maybe earlier. There are several vacant buildings with for rent signs including a neighboring motel, the Bud Get Inn (I assume it was the Budget Inn, but who knows), that didn't make it and a gas station across the street that is vacant as well. I think the only thing keeping this city going is the one-night guests that don't want to traverse Mexico at night. So they drive to border, stay the night, maybe get dinner, and cross the next morning leaving Nogales behind.

Anyway, the big news of the day is that while I was using time to catch up on some blog reading, I received a phone call from our regional security officer letting me know that if we need any last minute items (as if our car could hold anything more) that I could stop by the Wal Mart. Then he also added that our air freight (EF'M no longer recognizes UAB) has arrived already!

Other than for the obvious reasons of having more of our stuff here already, this also is a huge bonus for me as it will give me a lot to do in these earliest days of adjusting. Unloading our car and sorting those items is a small task that I figured I could knock out before today is over.

Unloading and sorting our air freight will keep me busy most of the day tomorrow, I imagine, as that also has our desktop computer and printer in it.

At this rate, it shouldn't take much time at all before our Hermosillian (?) home starts to feel like our home.

On the Verge

EL PASO - I'll keep this short, but we're on our way out of Texas (finally), and we cross the border tomorrow.

It has been a long, four-day, 2,000-mile, eight-state journey thus far that has included a couple of stops with family and a couple of stops in La Quintas across Texas.

The end is near, but we had a few loose ends to tie up in El Paso before we could leave Texas once and for all. By the way, after we drove through Odessa and before we reached El Paso, there exists about 250 miles of desolation. A couple of small town-gas station stops, a couple of mountain ranges and a lot of sand and brush. Nothing else. I hope I never need to drive through west Texas again. No offense to west Texans.

Our chief reason for stopping in El Paso was to visit the Border Patrol to interview for our SENTRI skip-the-border-crossing-lane pass. Our appointment was for 8 a.m., and we were staying about 10 miles from the Border Patrol building we were to meet at. Deciding to play it safe, we left around 7:15 a.m., and it was good that we did because we needed a little extra time to find our way around the Border Patrol compound.

Still, we got there about 20 minutes early, and thus began the waiting process. This is where the Border Patrol morphs into the DMV. But with shorter, slower moving lines.

We signed in at 8 a.m. and waited 30 minutes until I got summoned to meet with a Border Patrol officer. He went through my documents, took my fingerprints and photo and interviewed me. It took about 30 more minutes. Then Natalie had about a 15-minute interview - shorter due to the fact that our officer did not need to double up on some of the information.

He was nice enough, though he seemed a bit shocked that neither of us have ever been to Mexico before. He asked both of us several times about different cities in Mexico and if we'd ever been to them.

Then back to the waiting room for another five or so minutes to fork over almost $200 for the SENTRI passes (we were both approved). Then another short wait to get our car inspected. Our appointment was for 8 a.m.; we left at 10 a.m.

We got our first look across the border and our first Border Patrol experience. We're excited about crossing tomorrow, and our future ex-pat comrades are excited to receive us. We're going out for tacos tomorrow night with them!

This probably closes the book on pre-post EF'M. I have to imagine the next time I post, it will be from Hermosillo.

EFM: Escalating Friction with Mexico

Does not a week go by in which the American-Mexican border situation worsen?

Last week, I mentioned that I've taken more interest in world affairs as a result of coming acquainted with the foreign service and its diplomats. Naturally, my interest in Mexico is more intense, and there is no shortage of news on that front.

In the latest incident, a U.S. border patrol agent shot a Mexican teen. Any guesses as to where on the border this took place? If you took the safe guess, Juarez (can't pronounce Juarez without "War"), you'd be right.

Closer to our future, temporary home, Arizona is pissing Mexico off (as well as East Coast Democrats) with the law about needing to carry documents proving your American citizenship, which only can lead to the harassment of the Latino population - illegal or otherwise. By the way, you have to love the way the Arizona legislature dressed this one up, as it is officially called the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."

Now I'm not going to pretend to have the answers. In all honesty, I get the arguments the Arizonans are making. There is a border problem, and that state is on the front line. It is easy for Americans far from the border to point at the state and its leaders and call them racists. Though in a bizarre twist, about a dozen states not along the border are introducing similar legislation. (Really Ohio? What, are you trying to keep the Canadians out? Or is this about keeping Kentuckians out? Despite what you might think, Kentucky is part of the Union, and we will continue to cross the river.)

My own opinions are that current situation is like the healthcare bill. I know something has to be done because the current situation can't continue this way, but I also think the passed solutions not only won't improve the situation, but in all likelihood, it will only serve to make things worse.

And with regards to American-Mexican relations, I have a profound interest in how this develops. As tensions between the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico continue to spiral out of control, and seemingly become more strained every day, spending a couple of years there is not incredibly enticing.

But then there is this article claiming that the four safest cities in the United States are San Diego, El Paso, Phoenix and Austin. Apparently, our recession has made us less desirable to potential illegal immigrants, or so a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman said.

Of course, the Border Patrol has a vested interest in showing it is doing its job. Just as the legislators have a vested interest in claiming a crisis to get more federal funds and pass racist laws under the guise of protecting the local populace.

That article concludes with this quote from Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Border security has become the most overused, and least understood, concept in the struggle over what to do about our broken immigration system," he said. "While an election year may not be the best time, the United States finally needs an honest debate over what it means to secure the country's borders."

I certainly can agree with this, and I'm about to get an up-close look at the border as well as what it is like for those on the other side of it. Maybe in two years, I'll have the answer, which might be necessary because I'm fairly certain our government won't.