Can You Hear Me Now?

Upon arriving here in Oaxaca, we were told that it could take 4 months minimum to get a phone line put in our house. With that in mind, we went and got cell phones thinking it might be a long time until we have "conventional" communication. Well...guess what? We now have a working phone line on our home. A friend from church, who works for the phone company told us this past Saturday that he could install a phone line some afternoon if we went to the main office and talked to another friend from church. I jumped on this offer!

Monday morning I went to the phone office, paid for the install, and Tuesday afternoon we have a phone line! WOW! I have NEVER had such service! We are continually blown away by the kindness of friends, and the service of strangers here. We decided that we are having culture shock simply from the kindness of the Mexicans. We aren't used to people going out of their way to get to know us, help us, and even just talk to us.

Previously whenever someone has wanted to offer us something, our internal flags went off wondering what they might really want. Usually it was money. But this is not the case that we have encountered here. Granted, I know there are times that we have been charged more or taken advantage of here in Mexico simply because of the color of my skin or the origin of my passport. But this is not the norm. The warmness and openheartedness of the Mexicans is really blowing us away!