By Joyce Holdread
PREVIEW Columnist
David held the xeroxed copy firmly down over the “tails” side of the quarter. With a red crayon, he rubbed lightly all along the round rim and over the spread-winged eagle. There. The official “stamp” was complete with the national symbol of the United States of America. He executed a few more copies — just in case.
We’d spent nearly six months teaching in the monastery school. Now we prepared to drive back up to the border over a long weekend to renew our visas. A six-month stay was the maximum for “tourists.” Several of our ex-pat friends in San Miguel, as well as Father Francisco, had told us we should be armed with several copies of our driver’s license — colored, clipped, pasted on thick card stock and laminated. David’s eagle “stamp” was his finishing touch. In Mexico, a stamp was the insignia of everything official.