Sunday, October 25, 2009

Nos estamos moviendo a México



We have some big news; we're moving to Mexico in January! Esten took a job at CIMMYT near Mexico City and that's where we will be for the next three years. We are very excited to step out of our comfort zone into a world that most people never get a chance to experience. I'll admit the not knowing what to expect and the "How DO you move to Mexico?" parts are challenging but they are not stopping us from embarking on this great adventure.
Dr. Borlaug, who was credited with saving over a billion lives from starvation, was a distinguished professor at A&M and he was on Esten's committee for a few years until he became ill and had to be removed. He recently passed away and Esten was an "usher" at his memorial on campus. Listening to his colleagues talk of him and what he did to save the world really made me hope that we were going to Mexico. Dr. Borlaug worked at CIMMYT for 40+ years and received the Nobel Peace Prize while he was working there. He once said, "I personally cannot live comfortably in the midst of abject hunger and poverty and human misery." He also believed that the world cannot be at peace until these people are helped to feed themselves and escape poverty. I love that Esten is choosing a job with dignity over a job for a huge corporation (where he would make a lot more money) like Monsanto. And if the corn fed boy from Iowa, Dr. Borlaug, survived Mexico so can we! VAMOS!
We'll be living on campus at first until we learn enough Spanish and feel comfortable living elsewhere. We're going to be about 3 hours from beautiful beaches both ways, east and west and a few minutes from Mexico City. We will be taking visitors as often as possible and CIMMYT kindly pays for us to come home once a year (hopefully we'll make it more often than that.) I'm currently selling things on craigslist and looking for responsible, loving homes for some of our belongings that I just can't part with. Enough about Mexico, how's that baby?
Rowan will be one next month. Can you believe it? He is getting more adorable everyday. He is on the cusp of walking and walks first, until he falls, then crawls to whatever the destination might be. He has a Radio Flyer walker that his aunt bought him last year and he pushes that thing around with speed. Any day now he's going to be full on walking.
He picked up the harmonica this past week. At first he couldn't play it but after we showed him several times he figured it out. He can also wave bye'bye, but only with his right hand. He gives open mouth kisses, tries to sort shapes and puts his socks inside his shoes when you take them off of him. This is video of some of Rowan's latest cuteness, including a Halloween sneak peek.