3

Mexico City, Mexico

Here we were, on our way to the unknown. This time, we had landed in the North American continent - The heart of ’Latinoamerica’. My dad was at the arrival gate to welcome us to our new temporary home, we hadn’t seen him in forever. Ali and I ran straight into his arms which were strong enough to lift us both from our feet, he spun us around and we all giggled out of joy. We were so very happy, we missed him dearly. His arms still remain the safest place in the world to me. He was very enthusiastic about our arrival in this land he was already starting to accustom to, he couldn’t wait to show us what life was going to be like here.

This time there wasn’t any particular temperature shock, though we were surprised by the landscapes and the air of Mexico City. As the city lies in an inland basin called the Valley of Mexico or Mesa Central which is enclosed by the mountains that form parts of the Neo-Volcanic range at an elevation of approximately two thousand and two hundred and four meters, the air tends to be dry and the pollutants hat we generate do not help. The air felt a little suffocating the first inhales, it’s like running in the cold and feeling it in your nose and down your throat.

The city seemed so vast and the roads so full, which is no surprise for a city of eight million inhabitants. It felt almost overwhelming but, just like in Abidjan, there was a great divide between the rich and the poor across the whole city. At first glance, Mexico City was a little less chaotic than Abidjan, but it was less exotic too. Whilst on one side lay all the slums and villages, on the other stood big wealthy condominiums, houses and buildings (shopping centres, offices, sport clubs, banks etc…).

The ride to our new house from the airport felt eternally long as the highway was full of traffic jams that we weren’t really used to just yet.

It turned out that my parents had found a house straight away this time, on the farthest side of the city in a recently built business district under the name of Santa Fe. We could say that Santa Fe is a "phoenix" kind of district as it was built straight up from the ashes of a slum named Romita and turned into Mexico city’s major CBD. It is also famous for being the home of the biggest shopping mall of the whole continent consisting of more than five hundred stores, some corporate office towers and a four hundred and fifty room hotel. When we arrived in Santa Fe, we were immediately fascinated by the buildings. They were so tall and with various shapes and forms. The architecture from Lyon to Abidjan had been a definite shock but this, this was unique in its own. Because it stood magnificently out of nowhere and added some structured modernity amidst this chaos.

We finally arrived in front of a big bronze-like metallic portal surrounded by a dark red facade on a hill. There were silhouettes on a tainted window and very soon, a guard came out to greet us and let us in. We were going to live in a condominium for the first time. It was reassuring to know we were going to live in our own tiny village inside such a big city.

Our house was on the farthest end of the first street (right from the entrance) of the condominium. All the houses were stylish, most of them were designed by well-known architects, one who happened to be our neighbour and a close friend of my parents.

Once at the front door, My dad opened it and the first thing my eyes flashed at was the brightness of the living room. It was a spacious space with a dark parquet floor contrasting the bright light coming from the large glass windows with a panoramic view of the city’s skyline. The living room also had a chimney and on the right side of it there was a glass door leading to a small terrace and from the terrace there were limestone stairs leading down to the garden. It was the first time I had ever seen a garden which we had to go downstairs to. It was a small garden but big enough to sunbathe, play football and have a table to have meals at. We had a tree, several small flower plants and bushes surrounding the area as well as covering the walls. Back to the inside of the house, next to the door leading to the terrace was a dining room full of mirrors all over the furthest wall. From there you could access the kitchen from a communicating door. The kitchen also had big glass windows giving view on the garden. It was a white kitchen, it was very nice, especially when the sun was shining; the sun rays would make the room glow and it brought a joyful atmosphere at dinner time or when we were cooking. It was lovely. On the right side of the kitchen there was a door that gave way to the outside which was the laundry room, but it was big enough so that we put a bed for our house helper and babysitter Claudia. She was just a few years older than I was and she was like an older sister to us. She loved us and we loved her too.

The best part was that, just like the garden, the bedrooms and another living room (the one with doors giving way to the garden) were downstairs. There were three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. Ali and I got a spacious room in which we had a bunk bed and our desks. My parents had the master bedroom with a gorgeous walking closet and a marbled bath with a fountain. I loved our house. The only inconvenience was that it was a little far from the city centre where we had our school and therefore all our friends. The route itself wasn’t too long as there was a highway, but the problem was the traffic jams… They were endless somedays. Far too many cars going the same way, which turned out to be the cause of our numerous delays in our school attendance checkbox. We had one too many delays which has ended up turning into a detention (one of three that I had in my school days). Anyway, we were here and we loved it already.

The company which we had moved for was called Texen and is a packaging and container company but my father only worked for them three years as the quality and AUP injection manager. His contract for Texen was meant to last four years but a new boss had asked my father to go back to France after the third year. Therefore, since we loved life here so much, my father did his best to find another job which would enable us to stay at least another year in this wonderful country. And so he did, he became site and customer quality manager for a French automobile company: Valeo. We were all delighted.

The first few months were always a little challenging. They were the phases of adaptation to the new culture, the new land, the climate and all the other things that one has to adapt to as a tourist already, except that you aren’t a tourist but you aren’t a local either. You are you, you are with your family and your pets and you have your own culture and nationality and traditions and habits that you are allowed to keep but you also have to develop a certain mindfulness and respect to the environment you encounter yourself into. There are laws, rules, governments, traditions and festivities which you may not be accustomed to that you have to learn to respect. There is a minimal amount of history that you must want to be curious about, for your own sake and cultivation but also because everything matters. Because each country has something for you to discover, for you to evaluate and learn from. The beauty of travelling is to cultivate your mind, grow your mindset, your lifestyle goals and your values. They are keys to living a purposeful life and one that you feel in control of. The first months are always the hardest but they are only temporary, once you face the phase of being out of your comfort zone, you open up your mind and rely upon your loved ones, your goals, values and your purpose; then life always feels good. As children we might not have been the most affected by our constant change of environments other than the fact that we left friends, certain hobbies and habits each time we moved. We are just so lucky to have the love of my parents, their dedication and their values that have always helped us get through everything. We weren’t ever missing a thing at the time. We were born and raised with the desire to explore and discover. Or at least I am.

We started school in the Liceo Franco-Mexicano of Polanco. It was a big school starting from kinder-garden all the way to high school all in one. Most were kids of dual nationalities mixed between Spanish, Mexican, French and more. Most were quite wealthy and pretty much everyone had chauffeurs and personal house keepers or "muchacha" as they are called. It wasn’t hard to make friends though, everyone was very friendly and people usually liked seeing new faces. There were many expatriates from my father’s company. There were many exclusive little groups of friendships but I quickly made good friends with three French girls who, sadly left the following year. Of course, other expatriates come and go too, sometimes that meant that you had to learn how to stay grounded. Getting deeply attached to people you grew fond of was never a great idea at that age. Growing up you’d imagine that you get so used to the mechanism of adaptation and having no strings attached, but that would be a lie. It gets harder even; and I think that it is the cause of our hyper sensibility, Ali and I. If you kept in touch though, it is never-ending Skype calls, snapchats and any other social media platforms that became very useful. I don’t know what I would do if there wasn’t social media nowadays, it has helped stay connected and updated on my friend’s lives all over the world and without it, many friendships would have ended, just because of the distance of course, you never really forget a person or their friendship.

I then made friends with a few other girls here and there until I eventually made friends with Hispanic girls as my Spanish was getting better from the lessons taught in school and speaking it on a daily basis. We ended up being a big group of friends though we also got closer one to the other depending on who was in the same class, but we genuinely all got along really well. Obviously there was drama from time to time but we had a good atmosphere. We had sleepovers, days of shopping (or wandering around in shopping centres for cinema sessions and sometimes to go ice skating); we celebrated countless birthdays which were always very extravagant. Some people did regular house parties where they sometimes rented inflatable castles to put in the garden with animators and they always ended with a ’Piñata’ [2], others rented a whole party venue, and some did them in amusement parks. I recall one being celebrated in an indoor amusement centre called Kidzania which was a place where children role play adult jobs and earn a currency which could be spent for actual objects. It was a crazy place which was very eye opening for us as children and birthday parties were organised in the artificial city’s nightclub, it was a lot of fun. Little did we know that this was a simulation of the life that we were to live as we grew into adults. There was also the unforgettable Six Flags amusement park which was a sensational amusement park, It was renown to be the most visited themed park in Latin America in which stood Superman, el Último Escape; the tallest, longest and fastest rollercoaster which got me crying in the queue only to leave me so full of adrenaline that I had to ride it again right after. It was the first time I had experienced such a sensational kick of adrenaline. It was definitely a great place to go to with friends, we always had a blast.

There were many school events and celebrations (which were national French or Mexican festivities) such as: El Dia de los Muertos [3], la semaine culturelle [4] , el cinco de Mayo [5] and many more. I had participated in the school choir which gave seasonally themed concerts and my class even had the opportunity to have a theatre teacher who had decided to put on an end of year show. I had instantly fallen in love with acting and theatre plays, there was something about the way one could appropriate oneself of the character it is assigned and completely let go of oneself and their stage fright that they would have they to role-play their own self. The final show had been a success and we had all gained a great experience about “lacher prise” as they say in French which means to let oneself go of oneself and become the character they are role-playing. We learned a lot about each other and the way we cooperated with one another as a theatre team in order to make the final show a great one.

The school also offered excursion weeks in which a lot of new friendships grew from. There was this one trip specifically which had been amazing, the place was called the ’Hacienda’ of Ixtafiayuca. It was located on the nearest state to the city of Mexico: Tlaxcala. It was my first outdoor education trip and I had loved it. Being with friends from school, our teachers and discovering a country-side and history of Mexico with local animators was so much fun. There were treks, sports days, history days and many more things. The funnest times were dinners and our free times where we would play games and tell each other fun and scary stories as well as legends of the place we were staying in. Mexico has numerous "mitos y leyendas” (traditional tales, narrations and folktales) that emerged from the mixture of European and Mesoamerican cultures from the colonial era. It was a spacious residence with columns, there was a big terrain which was the outside green and there was a large terrace with fountains which was the inside garden. Most haciendas in Mexico are made similarly, with colours variating between orange, yellow, red, blue and white. They were all beautiful, Mexican art is beautiful. I recall visiting a pottery shop and studio in which we got to see the wonderful traditional Mexican pottery and embroidery from local artisans. The colours were all combined together in such a harmonious way that gives life to whatever the material they are recovering. That trip remains planted in my mind, it was the first trip in which I felt independent and discovering life with friends, which are things I dearly cherish. I remember we even visited the place in which tequilas were made. We had a private guide that explained how they mowed the Agave plant and the process which enabled them to produce Tequila. It is divided in seven steps consisting of harvesting, cooking, fermentation, distillation, paging and finally: bottling. It was fun to learn about something that adult’s usually seem to be interested about, especially this being a trip for educational purposes. We even got a free sample for us to test.

We also had long treks and had traditional Mexican lunches and dinners and snacks. Overall, it was an unforgettable experience, sharing all this discovery as a group.

These are the sorts of trips and memories that have influenced me and my desire to make others experience such wonderful moments of life. It was the first time that I had enjoyed being part of an educational institution. We had learned and seen so much of each other and the people around us. It was these kinds of moments that gave you the will to live. It was a little sad coming back from such trips, back to the routine, back to the ordinary. Though some friendships had grown strong, people were still people and it wasn’t the same as being outdoors.

Mexico was also a place in which I started to attract and be attracted to boys. I didn’t particularly force myself to attract them, let’s say I was naturally a big flirt, and my flirting worked wonders. The problem was that I easily got attracted… I had what you could call my first ‘boyfriend’, but I ended up flirting with another boy who was new in school the second year which made me lose him (what a start in the world of romance). I had no cruel intentions nor did I want to hurt anyone, I just fell for people’s charms very easily and was young enough to move on just as easily too. I had fallen for a few other guys throughout the years but nothing serious of course, I was young and love was too big a word to use in that period of time. It was platonic love lets say, and I had gotten plenty of it. I had my first heartbreak as one boy I had fallen for had broken up with me to date one of my best friends, but it was no big deal back then really. All I knew was that I was a coquette confident little girl who could get however she set eyes on.

Academically wise, I still wasn’t the greatest student but studied just enough to make it a pass. I dedicated myself to the subjects I enjoyed most which were art (which I also took as an after school activity, with a brilliant and inspiring teacher ) , sports, French and Spanish. I had a slight dark period in which I was failing my French ’dictées’ [6] and I had managed to hide my grades from my parents which my teacher (a friend of my mother’s) dug deep into and told my parents as soon as she understood the situation. I guess I was hard on myself since the beginning, being a good student and daughter to make sure my parents were proud of me. I always did whatever it took for them to be. If there was something I owed them it was that. It was also then that I had had my first detentions. One was because of how many late tickets were filled in my attendance notebook and another one was because I had asked a friend for her to land me her biology binder as I had forgotten mine and our teacher was very strict and thought I had tried to fool her. I would have gotten a detention either way but this one really got her frustrated, she had taken it as a mockery from my end. I never meant to disrespect her, I just hated my carelessness for some things and felt like I had to cover it somehow, which could make things worst for this matter. Either way, I hadn’t been in too much trouble other than having a two hour detention which had felt like two of the longest hours of my life back then.

As a family, life in Mexico City was incredible. There was always something new to discover or to do on the weekends. My parents made very good friends, most whom were also expatriates and who enjoyed doing the same things as my parents did. We had a pretty nice place close by that we loved going to, especially my father who liked going mountain biking with Dax It was a forest called Desierto de los Leones, there were restaurants and playgrounds, there were horses you could rent to have walks in the forest on, there were also convents hidden in the forest. It was a magical place. If we weren’t there, we were at the Marquesa plains. These were wide open fields with treks up the mountains. There were small lakes in which you could fish your own trout that was then cooked for you to have for lunch, in local restaurants. There were water games, quad and go-kart courses. It was a great place to go to with friends and pets. The restaurants served traditional dishes and they all tasted delicious. One of my favourites was the ’Quesadillas de queso’, they were black corn flour ’Tortillas’ with a local cheese called the ‘Queso Oaxaca’ which was a cheese that looked like a ball of rubber bands and melted to taste almost like cooked mozzarella, but since Mexicans love spice and use it in almost every dish they make I always had to ask for a spice-less one, I was terrible at handling and digesting spice. Another one was the ’caldo de pollo’ which was a chicken broth soup with some rice and vegetables at the bottom. I loved those two dishes most which were just some of the most delicious traditional Mexican dishes. There were chilaquiles, tacos, tostadas, elote, mole, enchiladas, guacamole, tamales, sopa de frijoles and many more. We spent endless days there and I remember there to be a spot we always stopped by on our way back home, it was by the highway and we discovered it as there were always big signs to indicate the few spots in which they were sold. Our favourite spot which we always stopped by was called ‘Las Fresas del km23’. It was basically a small market stand by the side of the highway in which were sold fresh wild strawberries with a homemade cream and one could choose other toppings and all kinds of sizes. They came with typical Mexican biscuits called ‘Galletas Marías’. The mix of all the ingredients tasted amazing, We adored them so much we showed all of our friends. We also discovered a place we would often take visitors to called Xochimilco [7] which was also a wonderful place to go to on weekends. It is a network of canals. Historically, before the Spanish arrived in Mexico City, the indigenous people of Mexico had created this incredible network of canals which they used as both a means of transport and as a way to ensure there was a constant supply of water throughout the country. There are multiple “embarcaderos” (piers) which service the canals, the ‘Trajineras’ are the name for the iconic brightly coloured boats which float up and down the canals. They have flat bottoms and float throughout the canals with nothing more than a long wooden ore which is controlled by your rower, just like a gondolier. In the centre of the boat is a large table and there are about a dozen chairs on either side. They are vibrantly painted to resemble the flowers which used to grow on either sides of the canals hundreds of years ago. Each boat is given a different name and it was so much fun for us to pick which boat we wanted to go on depending on the name and the colour each time. The ride on the canal was very peaceful and there were many other smaller boats that acted as floating food trucks with all sorts of snacks and drinks. Ali and I loved to get salted ‘elotes’ (grilled corn on a stick) and we often also had lunch on the boats. One could also order ’Mariachi’ [8] bands for them to come and perform throughout the ride. As they pass you by they’ll offer to board your boat and play a song or two or really as many as you want and it added so much authenticity to the whole experience. It was lovely. They were all dressed in traditional Mexican uniforms with big ’Sombreros’ (traditional wide-brimmed hat) and all seemed to be joyful each time. They knew how to set a vivid atmosphere.

We would also bring our guests and family to visit the unique UNESCO World Heritage Site of Teotihuacán [9], only to make them marvel at the richness of the Mexican history.

Everyday life was also really nice, we ended up meeting quite a few of the other residents of our condominium when there were events’ organised in the common park. We met the loveliest neighbours and discovered the heart of Mexican hospitality; they always welcomed you with open arms and their saying “mi casa es tu casa” is no joke, they wholeheartedly truly know how to make you feel right at home. There were lunches, dinners and parties. There wasn’t a single dull moment that we spent in this country. Friendship is a mere reduction of a word to characterise the relationship you could build with people here. There was something about them, an openness and a certain sensibility. They all seem to have big hearts full of love and affection that they feel the need to share incessantly. It was for the first time then, that I realised how time flies when you’re enjoying life to its fullest. And although we had developed a kind of routine on weekdays, there was not a single day that felt the same. It was a constant adventure, day in and day out.

And then someday, something crazy happened. I don’t know who gave her the idea or how; but somehow someday, my mother had taken us to a modelling agency called Look Models to sign up for a contract. It was like we had entered another dimension of the world we knew, one we had no clue about. We saw our roles invert from being the consumers and targeted audience to becoming part of the actors and workforce of marketing, social media and advertisements. We got to see all the process of the work behind all the commercials, tv series and modelling pictures from the magazines; it had been a mind-opening experience. My mother was very enthusiastic about it all as she felt proud of the beauty of her daughters and the world’s recognition. She started taking us to photoshoot, movie and ad castings all over the city. Sometimes, when we had been chosen, we would even miss school days in order to attend the shootings, castings for important things. We even did a runway show once for a famous Mexican magazine called BBMundo which the owner ended up befriending my mother because of how much she loved us. We did countless photoshoots, a few ads, a tv series and a runway show. It had been a whole lot of work in which we had to wake up early, be disciplined, learn how to be photogenic and act; it really was a job after all. It sometimes demanded an attendance as considerable as a school (It was tough to manage both). Our friends started recognising us, some were also models from different agencies and our teachers knew about it, but it didn’t excuse us from missing out at school. The director had requested to see my mother once to discuss the matter, but we always got away with it. It really became a big part of our lives.

Ali was quite a star in the industry, she really did have it in her. The look, and the photogenic poses; she was young and grew up to be even more beautiful with time, she could still be a model today if she wanted to. My career had ended pretty early as I was too grown up to be a child model and not tall or old enough to be a professional model, but I had loved the experience while it had lasted. It is funny looking back on those pictures and ads now and imagine our younger selves working at such a young age all of it being managed by our mother; modelling paid quite well if one worked for the right brands and under the wing of the right agencies. I learned a lot from it in terms of fashion and photography too. Fashion-wise, it was in Mexico when I started dressing myself up. It was a big change in terms of style and standard compared to my mother’s. When in Ivory Coast she bought most of our clothes as second-hand from local markets, in Mexico we started to shop in the fast-fashion companies in quite luxurious shopping centres. It was a big upgrade.

In this period, friends of mine started to have cell-phones and touch screen technology had just come out. My first phone was a blackberry, everyone used BBM [10] and we texted one another uninterruptedly. Back then already it was becoming an addiction that had affected us all.

I started to use social media too; Facebook, instagram and Skype. They were very useful in terms of communication but they did make you feel self-conscious about the truthfulness of the content we all shared. It made me start to feel conscious about the way I dressed, looked and appeared in the eyes of others. My sister and I would photograph one another, we would do photo shoots with friends, sometimes these were themed (just to be a little bit more extra). It was already quite surprising how socially important these platforms and devices became. We were all trying to capture, expose and share the best moments of our lives.

Other than that, my hobbies hadn’t really changed and my mother had signed me up at an equestrian club in which other of my friends from school attended. Ali had also tried it out, but it didn’t take long before she stopped, she had a hard time finding a sport. However, she loved pets; and so for her eighth birthday my mother had gotten her, her very own puppy. She got a French bulldog that she named Happy because his mouth shape seemed like he was always smiling. Him and Dax got along right away, Dax acted as his carer and Happy looked up to him. He did whatever Dax did and they were both adorable. We took Happy all over the place when we first got him.

The equestrian club of Mexico was just as wonderful of a place as the one from Abidjan, but my teacher was a very harsh woman. She demanded high levels of focus and discipline to each and every student and horse. Classes with her hadn’t been the most memorable but I had certainly progressed a lot. My favourite part was going on walks or cross-country riding in the nearby forest. It was there that I had my first competition and my first accident. My first competition had been a failure which had made me reconsider my riding purpose. When training, I had done the jumping course without ay mistake, but for some reason once on the field and the competition bell after the presentation facing the judges ringing; I lost all sense of control because of how badly I wanted to win. I had set myself the goal to do best, but I had failed miserably. This event made me realise that riding wasn’t about wining ( unlike what my teachers tried to pressure us all into) but it is about creating a trustful relation with the horse, I loved riding and it wasn’t a single failure (despite the hard work behind all the training) that was going to make me stop. My accident happened on a day like any other. But I had been assigned a new horse and despite the lesson that had gone well, when it came to going cross-country it only took the first obstacle (which was quite a big tree trunk) for the horse to dead-stop and refuse to jump the obstacle sending me flying in the air only to land, head first, on the other side. I had been lucky and didn’t break anything but my helmet. I had just recovered from the rush of adrenaline before I heard my mother’s gasps of shock. She had a greater fright than I had and refused to let me ride for the following months. Some of my friends had started to do gymnastics and had persuaded me to join in with them, so Ali and I both signed up for it and went to practice for a year or so, twice a week. Unfortunately my friends went to a different gym than we did as we lived too far from them and decided to go to one in Polanco which was the same district as my school’s. I had loved gymnastics, the more we practiced the stronger and more confident we became. It is a dynamic sport which still required the self-discipline and gracefulness that ballet had taught me. I loved the persistence and fearlessness one needed in order to execute some of the figures we were asked to perform. We even participated in a competition in which I had won first on the balance beam. It was a sport of dedication and trust with the teacher and one’s body. Unfortunately we soon stopped as our school schedules didn’t match the classes anymore, and Ali didn’t like sports so my mother had to find a solution. The last year, my mother signed Ali up to piano lessons which she did for a year but didn’t really follow up. These were held by a piano teacher from an all boys school. Ali did play well, but she didn’t really enjoy it all that much. I would come get her with mother after school from time to time.

She had also signed up to a gym called SportsWorld in which one could purchase a membership and have access to endless sports classes varying from indoor studio classes such as body combat, jazz, ballet, yoga, pilates, zumba, swimming, rock climbing, machines and many more; to outdoor classes such as tennis, badminton and football. The next thing I know is that we were going almost everyday of the week after school. My mother did the adult classes such as body combat and went running on the machines whilst I was either at the ballet, jazz, rock climbing or football classes. It was our escape from passive periods of time throughout the year, one was never bored in there.

Other than that, Mexico was the place in which I had earned enough consciousness to realise more and more things surrounding me, the world and our life as expats. I learned to observe my parents as individuals instead of just being mere caretakers of Ali and I. I rediscovered my parents and their hobbies. My mother started painting, she took some classes and had met other artistic friends. My father, I realised, was a talented musician. In fact he had taught himself how to play guitar and had been part of a band in his uni years. He also managed to start a band here with a few colleagues and expat friends. Thanks to him, I had participated in a concert to celebrate his forty-fifth birthday as a soloist to sing two of his favourite songs: The Wall by Pink Floyd and Ben E. King’s Stand by me. That night my father was one of the happiest man alive, he was doing good at work, he had the family he had always dreamed of and he loved his friends. We have a CD made with all the songs that were performed that night by their band and my father still plays the songs from time to time showing his new friends how proud he is of his little girl. Ali was also supposed to sing with me that night, but she had shied away and pretended to be asleep so she could escape the responsibility, smart girl she is. It was so lovely to have parents who had a creative hobby aside their regular jobs, it brought more liveliness to our lives. Nowadays I can’t imagine living a single day without music or art. They became vital needs.

Explorers that they are, my parents took every chance they could to travel all over Mexico and discover its wonders. We got to travel as a family and with friends to Acapulco, Cancún, Puebla, San Luis Potosi, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Valle del Bravo and many more gorgeous locations all over Mexico. The country was full of wonders, and everywhere we went we marvelled at it all. We went climbing up the Popocatepetl [11], we went camping in the wild, we went to luxurious hotels, but nothing could beat this one trip we had been on with some friends in Michoacán [12]. We had been taken to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in a beautiful forest up in the mountains to see the arrival of the Monarch butterflies. All I remember is the beauty of the sun rays caressing the trees and illuminating the leaves making the green and orange colours glow. The trees were in fact full of butterflies, it was magnificent. We were encouraged to be quiet which made the moment even more intimate, there was the sound of nature though. A sound so soothing that it could make a baby fall asleep. It was breathtaking, all you had to do was stand back and enjoy the show of nature. I also recall the unforgettable trip to Los Cabos where we had gotten up as early as five am to go and watch the gray whales with their newborns, it was such a memorable sight. The ocean was as blue as a cloudless sky, almost turquoise. On the boat trip we had also gotten the chance to see manta rays flapping right above the water’s surface, they looked so vivid. Marine life really does leave you mesmerised; to think that we have only explored and mapped out five to ten percent of the ocean [13], is beyond fascinating. Who could not fall in love with the ocean?

In Puerto Aventuras, we had been with some of my mother’s closest friends to snorkel on coral reefs and swim with dolphins in captivation for the first time. It wasn’t nice to know that they had been captured from the wild in order to have been trained to follow orders and entertain us humans, but it was an unforgettable experience. They are such magnificent marine creatures yet they are so intelligent. We also got to swim with ’Manatees’ [14], these strange creatures are really like sea cows in the way they move. And I could never forget the time we had been to a sea-turtle preservation centre in which people were allowed to release recently hatched turtle cubs into the ocean. It had been something, but it didn’t even amount to 2013 New Year’s Eve in Puerto Vallarta where a leatherback sea turtle (tortle luth) laid eggs right in front of our eyes as the clock hit midnight. I remember being astonished by the beauty of nature again and again all the way throughout these wonderful trips.

Mexico had earned a piece of our hearts, we had countless loving memories and countless encounters with such wonderful people. Despite it being a country where safety isn’t always assured and where poverty and bankruptcy are the wealthy’s only problems, it was a memorable place to have lived in. We ourselves, had encountered minor inconveniences; bankrupted police officers giving us fines or scaring us with their big fire arms which were intimidating in my children eyes. Once, my father (a fast and furious person when on the wheel) had gotten into a sort of disagreement with a taxi driver on the motorway to our school in which I was seating on the from of the car whilst he had gotten out in the middle of a traffic jam in order to settle the point of conflict. All I remember was his fury taking over him like it did sometimes and the next thing I saw was his fist right into the taxi driver’s head. He had quickly gotten back into the car and thankfully, the driver had just carried on; driving away as my father had slowly come back to himself. It had been the first time I had witnessed such violence coming from my loving father; a scary one that one, but all in all, what we had experienced was nothing compared to what some of our friends had gone through or what we would hear on the news. It seemed like luck was often on our side. At the end of the day there hadn’t been a single regret from this period of life. We had loved every second of it. We were heart-struck when the four years had come to an end and we had been assigned a new beginning elsewhere. Throughout these four years, my father had escalated his job hierarchy four times and ended up changing company altogether only to end up working for Valeo, the company he still works in today. There was the choice between Peru and Thailand this time. Two very different places but both sounding lovely. My parents didn’t know yet what to decide so they had decided to try and do a recognition trip to see which one would be our next destination. We had once more stayed at friend’s houses this time as they travelled to identify and sight-see the options. Ali and I both got to choose which friend’s place we wanted to stay at. I had decided to stay at Natalia Martinez’s house, one of my closest Mexican friends, she is a true sweetheart. It had been so lovely to stay over at hers and discover what it’s like to experience the life of a Mexican family, they were such lovely people and we had grown fond, a great friendship from then onto today. In the end, when my parents had come back, once again very enthusiastic about their choice of our future expatriation; they had chosen to go to Thailand where my father became a site quality manager in the factory located in Rayong. And off we were again on the other side of the world.

Leaving Mexico had been so much harder than I thought it would be, thankfully, the Mexican tradition says that there must be a ’despedida’ [15] when one leaves; so I got to organise my own for which we rented a whole event venue where I got to invite all the dearest people who had made my time so wonderful here. We got to dance all evening with a real DJ that we had rented. We all pretty much cried by the end of it, but it had been a memorable evening. My parents did their own party the same day at night in the same venue and it was funny to see how the space had been used both by my guests and my parents’. It had been an unforgettable day full of warm emotions. The last day at school had been heartbreaking in the most beautiful way; all my friends had given me a book full of leaflets and drawings filled with memories and kind words for me to take wherever I’d go in order to never forget them (which I wouldn’t have with or without all their presents). I have this book in my room and tears come rolling down every time I read through it. There is no way to describe how kind and heartwarming they all are. They had become family to me and we are pretty much all still in touch up to today. We had cried so many tears that we could have filled a whole ocean in one day, I had loved this chapter of my life from the bottom of my heart. And this is when I understood that all good things eventually do come to an end. I felt melancholy slowly welling through my body for the very first time. A feeling of knowing that this place and time and the version of myself I was in it were going to be just another speck of time taken away from me from the universe’s never-ending manifold.

Next Chapter: Pattaya, Thailand