What a day! After breakfast – strawberry yogurt and natural yogurt mixed with cereal – the Señores (owners of my apartment) took me to the phone company. The Señora set up the line in her name and took care of everything. (I costs over a hundred dollars to set up a phone line. It used to be a two year wait. They say that mine will be installed within the next 10 days. Next, they took me to an ATM so I could pay my rent ($4,800 – about $480 dollars) and security deposit.
The Señora, who is 66 (they asked her year of birth at the phone company) reminds me so much of my Grandma Ruth at that age. Like my grandma, Señora always takes the time to look her best, she wears quite fashionable clothes and always has makeup on and her hair done. She also took my arm to walk across the street and up steps. It’s like I’m living with a Mexican version of my grandma – very weird.
This living situation is perfect – after taking care of the phone for me, then, this afternoon when I was going to take the metro, I realized it would help a lot if I knew the name of the metro station near where I live. Well, Señor not only showed me on the map, but then Señora walked with me to the station. They are quite amazing!
The metro was easy, same as anywhere, knowing the last stop directs you to which line you need. However, I did have to transfer two times. I was going to San Angel that is just west of my apartment, but no metro line connects the two. So I took the line north, transferred to another to go west and finally to another to head south.
I went to visit my mom’s friend’s relatives. Ada picked me up from the metro station and we went to her house. There is a huge, blue, steel door to enter her land that has two houses – one is for Ada’s family and the other is for her Aunt Jane and Uncle Moishe. It was Jane’s father who bought the land upon arriving in Mexico City from Eastern Europe in the 1920s. Jane’s father had many siblings, one of whom left Eastern Europe and settled in Chicago – his son is Marvin, husband of Phyllis, who is my mom’s friend. Got it?!
I had lunch at Ada’s house with her twin 4 year old daughters Ariela and Dani (Daniela). After sitting for a bit I walked the 30 steps over to Jane’s house and talked with her for a while. She has three sons living in the states. I felt as if Jane could be my great-aunt, she showed great interest in learning about me and my family. She took the time to help me look through maps and get my bearings. She also drove me back home and had me mark the map as we went along – I can’t believe she’s not related to my mom!
While I loved talking with Jane and learning about her family’s history, as I am fascinated by immigration stories and how Jews live in every part of the world, the greatest part of this visit was that I actually felt like I was related to them - I had to keep reminding myself that I’m not. That’s how welcome they made me feel – right away correcting me when I addressed them in the polite form of “you” (usted) and asking me to instead use the informal “you” (tú).
