Juárez

Victor’s family continued to ask about Maria Elena, so we made plans to bring her to meet her family in Mexico. We drove down and pulled up in front of his mother’s house. His little brother was playing outside and ran into the house saying “Hugo is here!”. In Mexico, it is common for people to refer to others with their middle name. So Victor Hugo, my husband, was called Hugo the whole time we stayed in Mexico. As I was newly employed with the School District, we decided to have Victor remain in Mexico and I would come frequently to visit with him and our daughter. We responded to an add from a doctor who was renting out her residence, and moved in to get settled. Mexico was a lot different than what I was used to. I had never learned how to do laundry by hand, but it didn’t phase Victor. He would scrub down the clothes on the washboard and hang them out to dry outdoors. We would take Maria Elena to the DIF pools and to the carnival that was happening nightly. The place where we had an apartment was very close to a trickle of raw sewage and it stunk so badly that we decided to move. The owner of the apartment refused to return the deposit we put down to secure the apartment and stated that we didn’t read the contract correctly. It was useless to argue; she was not giving us the money back.

Maria Elena celebrated her first birthday in Juárez.