ni rosas ni juguetes

Another week in Tamaula is over. :( I'm writing from the Internet cafe in Irapuato next to Adriana's house. We're all meeting here tonight and heading off to Michoacan for the weekend. There's about 40 people going (basically anyone involved with the foundation that's around is going), so it'll be a fun time!

This week was a blast for me. I grew closer to my "sister" Maria Santos, who is probably one of the most brilliant girls in Tamaula. Sunday, we went on a horse ride (finally!) up the mountain and saw a beautiful view of Tamaula and surrounding communities. We named the horse Bronco and had so much fun riding around.

Santos & I at the top of the mountain

Santos and I pretty much spent every minute together from when she got out of school at 2 until she woke up the next morning to go to school. (We shared a bed this week while Angel, Caroline's boyfriend, was visiting from Veracruz.) We played plenty of basketball, practiced boxing, went horseback riding again (this time with Ramón, one of my English students), chiflared (whistled) a TON, ate cookies that we hid in our room, listened to music on my iPod (she's also a fan of reggaeton and Juanes), and laughed and laughed and laughed. We also set a new meta for ourselves -- I'm going to learn all the lyrics to "Ni Rosas, Ni Juguetes" by Paulina Rubio (one of her favorites), and she's going to learn all the lyrics to "Hot ´N Cold" by Katy Perry (one of the only English songs on their computer). Basically, she's awesome.

The week flew by, partly because it was cut short by our early departure today. Still, the weeks are flying by here, and it's really getting to me. I'll be really sad to leave the community that has been such a great home for me for the past 4 weeks. Despite being sad about leaving so soon, we have a lot of fun stuff coming up. Sunday, all 8 of us UNC kids (Caroline's staying in Tamaula this weekend) are going back up the mountain, and I cannot wait to share Tamaula with all of our compañeros. Monday is a huge community work day in Tamaula. All of the kids have a break from school, and the whole community is getting together to beautify the town. Some 100 secundaria students are coming from Irapuato, so with them, combined with all of us, the Ibero students, and all of the Tamaula residents, it's going to be quite a party.

One last note -- some of the people that I will miss the most in the community are the kids. The other day, I was walking up the hill to my house, and when I got within 100 feet of the house, I was greeted by a collective "Leeeeeennn!!!" scream and 5 kids running toward me. They're literally filled with joy, and I'm going to miss all of them a ton (even Oswaldo's sometimes-annoying high-pitched voice).

Monserrat & Carolina, two of the cutest girls in Tamaula

I'll leave with this picture I took on our second horseback ride. Beautiful, no?

la lluvia llegò

The rainy season in Tamaula has arrived! It's been storming the past two nights and rained for most of this morning. Although it makes transportation a little more difficult and has kept me and Santos from riding horses, I love it. I love a good thunderstorm, and the refreshing smell after a good rain is amazing.

It's the end of another weekend in Tamaula. Clay, Caroline, and I opted out of traveling again to Guanajuato City, and even though it was a little slow around here, I'm glad we stayed. Yesterday, I got to play basketball again with some of my students, AND I got to learn how to box! The Chicago Youth Boxing Club has a presence in Tamaula and turned one of the classrooms of the primaria into a room for practicing boxing. One of my students, Ramòn, taught me how to correctly punch, with gloves and everything. Needless to say, I'm a little sore today. We then proceeded to play jumprope games for a while until we got news that the power was back (The power was out all day because of the storm the night before). We invaded the secundaria classroom for another movie, this time "Inspector Gadget." One thing I noticed -- dubbing in Spanish is a lot more noticeable in a movie with real people. Last night, I also learned how to whistle by grabbing my bottom lip/chin in my hand and sucking in air. It's probably the ugliest way to whistle, but still a cool talent, I guess. Santos was a proud teacher after I learned how to do it within an hour.

Yesterday, I also enjoyed some quality time with Esmerelda, or "Esme." She's the two-year-old granddaughter of Dona Mago, and she's absolutely precious. She barely speaks, but she has started referring to me as "Lìn" (or "Leen," in English). I take this as a compliment, seeing as she has not begun to form many complete words or sentences yet. One of her favorite things to do is sit on my bed and play with things on my nightstand, which have included my chapstick, my phone, my travel alarm clock, and my book.

The beautiful Esme

Today, we rode down to Irapuato with Don Candido and some of their visiting family. Clay and I went with them to the zoo, while Caroline went to pick up Angel (novio) from the bus station. Even though I'm actually not the biggest fan of zoos (and this one was no better than the ones I've seen), it was cool to see the kids running around and enjoying it. We spent some more quality time at Dona Martina's family's house (less than usual, actually), then rode back up.

One of Clay and I's somewhat unhealthy goals of the summer (and one that I am sure my mom will disapprove of) is to try and rate all of the Bimbo treats offered here in town. So far, we've made our way through Pinguinos (de chocolate), Pinguinos (de vainilla), Submarinos, Negritos, Plato-Villos, Emperadores, Panquecitos, and Napolitanos. We went on a little eating splurge the past few days (we blame it on the lack of food at our houses), but we've decided to cut back until Tuesday.

Healthy? No. Delicious? Yes.

I'm excited for this week here, especially because I feel like I'm starting to build friendships with my students here. I especially love hanging out with Santos (who actually prefers to be called Mari). She's my fourteen-year-old "sister," and she is hilarious and brilliant. She's only in the second year of secundaria, but she's a genius! I really desire for her to get out of Tamaula and do big things in her life, but I'm afraid she'll get stuck in the same routine as most of the girls here do: finish secundaria (maybe prepa) and either hang out at the house and help your mom with chores or get married and start having kids. Not to say at all that this a bad lifestyle because there are certainly lots of women here that I'm sure enjoy it. But for someone like Santos, and many of the other youth here, who has a brilliant mind and a desire to learn, I want her to have something more. She really wants to be a designer, but if she doesn't have the money to go to the university after graduating prepa, her options are pretty limited. It's a thought that's been going through my head over the past few weeks and something Caroline and I have talked about. Is there a way to offer more becas (scholarships) to students here? How could that be done in a way that benefits more than just one graduate a year? I also wonder about the scholarships offered by the government. Are there any, and if so, does anyone here know about them? As a firm believer in the importance of education, I wonder if there's a way to get more of the students here into the university because I really do think that that could do a lot for them. It's something that I would love to look more into.

God is doing big things here and in the other communities where our companeros are. Still, I'm getting excited to go back home and spend some quality time with my family and friends before getting caught up in another school year. Peace & love :)

"Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city (pueblo/state/country)."

porqué esto es África

World Cup 2010 starts today, and Mexico plays South Africa at 10:00! Vamos Mexico!

This week has been a busy, but fun, week here in Tamaula. It was great to get back into the routine of the community here after having been gone for the weekend. Our English classes have continued going well. This week, my class learned the vocabulary for things in a house and specifically in a bedroom, bathroom, etc. During the afternoon sessions, I've been able to help a few students one-on-one with conversation skills. We've also been opening the prepa building more often, so we've had more company in there. The kids love practicing their typing skills on a program Clay downloaded called TypeFaster. On Wednesday, I also got to hang out with the kids while they practiced their "color guard" routine. They would practice for a little, and then we'd play some basketball.

Ramon, Tere, Angeles, Maria Santos (my "sister"), and 

Juana practicing their routine

This week, we could also see hints of the rainy season beginning. The rainy season starts sometime in June and lasts about 2 to 2 1/2 weeks. Some days it apparently rains all day and night! It started raining during our usual futbol game on Tuesday, but that didn't keep us from playing! We also started movie nights this week. We open up one of the secundaria classrooms that has a projector and put on a movie for the kids and jovenes. This week, we watched the first two "Shrek" movies. It's pretty entertaining to 1) listen to Shrek and Burro in Spanish and 2) watch the kids enjoy and laugh along with the movies.

The rain starting -- and the secundaria buildings

Yesterday, we got to experience somewhat of a field trip for us and the students here. We went with some of the secundaria students, some of the girls from prepa, and a few others in the community to Leon (Guanajuato's largest city) for the Pre Conferencia Estatal de Juventud, Guanajuato 2010. It was a pre-conference for the World Youth Conference in August in which students from all over the state came and presented proposals on various topics, including poverty, immigration, and unemployment. Our students were supposed to present, but it turns out that they never got signed up, so they spent the morning listening to different speakers and students. Clay, Caroline, and I took a bus down to the centro of Leon and had a great morning/afternoon eating, shopping, and walking around the different plazas. We headed back to the Poliforum (the big convention center building where it was held) in the afternoon and joined some of the students in the activities they had. They had set up a huge room with all sorts of fun things -- a mechanical bull, painting stations, pottery stations, trampoline jumping, dressed up people walking around on stilts, and more. It was fun, and Caroline, Lady (our "sister-in-law"), and I had a blast taking pictures with all the different characters.

Lady and I with Porfirio Diaz

Another great thing about yesterday -- my sister Meredith graduated high school!!!

Oh yeah, and Caroline bought placenta extract shampoo...

13 pesos at Waldo's. We just hope she doesn't go bald.

la ciudad bonita

We're back from an awesome weekend in what is in my opinion one of the best cities in the world! All of the 9 UNC people working here got together in Guanajuato City to relax and catch up with each other. Clay, Caroline, and I hitched a ride down the mountain on Friday and got dropped off in Irapuato, where we caught a bus to the city. We met up with Kaylee, Jake, and Ana Laura, who are spending their time in El Gusano. We had a great time walking around the city and sharing stories about what's going on in each of the communities. Feeling like taking a break from the eggs and beans routine, we ordered 3 pizzas from Domino's for dinner and enjoyed them on the roof of Casa Bertha, our hostel. After dinner, we went out dancing at a few of the city's clubs and ended up running into the group of Americans that was in Tamaula this past week!

I woke up early Saturday morning (definitely not on purpose) and spent some time reading and journaling on the roof, which has a beautiful view of the entire city. We had another very American meal of cereal and toast for breakfast and headed out to walk around the city. We explored inside the Univerisdad de Guanajuato and spent a few hours eating lunch and talking at Tasca de la Paz. We took the funicular (like a small train car) up the mountain to Pipila, a statue that overlooks the entire city. We visited Callejon del Beso, a famous, narrow street in Guanajuato. Kaylee and I went shopping in the huge mercado and came back to relax on the roof of Casa Bertha. Saturday night, we got dressed up and went out to a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant in the plaza. We sat on the second floor, overlooking the entire plaza. I had the best pesto pasta with chicken I've ever eaten, tried some Argentinian wine, and finished off the meal with tiramasu. It was a really nice break from the Mexican rancho food we've been eating for 2 weeks.

On Sunday, the Tamaula crew headed out of the city around noon to be able to catch a ride up the mountain later in the day. We took a bus back to Irapuato and then another one to Cuchicuato, where we spent a few hours at Dona Martina's family's house. We rode back up with their family, and it sure was great to be back in Tamaula.

This week is another week of English classes and futbol games for us. Caroline has a ton of work to do with her research, and I'll be helping Clay with testing water for his project. We're also going to start having movie nights this week with some of the movies we bought in Irapuato, including all three Shreks and all six Harry Potters!

Also, happy 24th anniversary to my parents, Holly & Matt! I love y'all!

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
- Matthew 11:28-30

Beautiful view from Pipila. And a beautiful friend!

cemento y chivas

The week has flown by! Today is already Thursday, and we leave tomorrow for Guanajuato City for the weekend!

Yesterday was a fun day for me. We started off the morning with English class, and then I had delicious taquitos (fried tortillas stuffed with beans) for breakfast. I went over to check out what the American group was doing, and I got roped in to helping inject anti-parasite cream into goats' mouths. I was able to do without spilling! And it was quite an experience.

Then, I got to mix cement! The group is building a water cistern next to the goat cheese factory that's being built, and it's made out of cement. Of course, I was dying to mix cement, and I finally got to! I helped Manolo mix 10 buckets of sand (a little bit grittier than the sand in Reynosa) and 3 bags of cement and some water. It definitely felt good to be mixing again :) When it was all mixed, I help Gregorio (one of my host mom's sons) plaster the cement onto the chicken wire structure to form the cistern.

Another thing I got to do yesterday was artificially inseminate a chiva (goat). Yes, I actually took a syringe full of hormones and who knows what else and injected into you-know-where. The group was doing it with a vet from CHOICE and wanted me to try. I'm still not sure how I felt about it. It seemed a little bit too unnatural for me, but it's apparently supposed to help all the goats get pregnant at the same time or something like that. I was definitely more in my element with the cement work.

I spent last night hanging out with the kids as usual. I took out my camera for one of the first times, and Lady, Santos (who we found out today actually prefers Maria), and the kids had a fun time modeling. We recorded a video of them speaking English, which I'll have to post later. We were having a grand time until Yesenia and Oswaldo found a globo (balloon) and proceeded to fight over it until they were both throwing outrageous tantrums. It was then that I decided to go find something to eat and let abuela Mago handle it.

Today marks 2 weeks for us here. It's weird how, on one hand, it feels like we've been here forever, but on the other hand, it's flown by. I'm finally comfortable here, and I know it's going to be extremely hard to leave. I'm already sad to be gone just this weekend! I know it's going to be hard to say good-bye, but I have to remember this: God puts people in our lives at different times for different reasons. Some people we meet are meant to be lifelong friends, while others are put in our lives for a short period of time. But everyone we meet and every experience we have shapes us in some way. Even if I never see anyone from this community again, I know that they will have impacted me in a way that no one else can.

"The Lord will do what is good in his sight." - 2 Samuel 10:12

nieve y galletas

What a great weekend we had! I spent Saturday playing with the kids and doing some English book corrections. But the real fun started Saturday night. We were invited to a presentación of two novios -- it was a party where the two who are going to get married came before a judge with their parents and some witnesses and basically promised that they wanted to get married. It's like the official governmental stuff before the actual wedding, and in Mexico, they have a party for it! Both of the novios are, in different ways, related to about half the population of Tamaula, so we had a caravan of 3 pick-up trucks going down the mountain and down the carretera to Rancho Nuevo, where the party was held. Between the 3 trucks we probably fit about 65 Mexicans. Let's just say Caroline and I couldn't stop laughing the whole time.

The party was bien divertida. We sat at tables while the couple was presented in front of the judge, and then we ate. And ate and ate and ate. We started with pozole, a soup with corn and meat. Then, the ice cream. Between the 8 of us at the table (Don Candido, Doña Martina, their son Oscar, Doña Mago, her daughter Santos, Clay, Caroline, and I), we finished off 35 cups of ice cream! (not to mention the 10 plates of cookies we also ate). Needless to say, we were a little stuffed. We started the caravan ride back to Tamaula, but not before we got some catcalls from the guys on the street corner. They sure love to practice their English on us. After a pit stop to fix the car in Cuchicuato, we drove back up the mountain to our home.

Sunday started off perfectly because Doña Mago served me hot chocolate for breakfast! Absolutely perfect. We spent the day in Irapuato, our first day in the city since we arrived. We went to support the Cuchicuato soccer team as they played a team from Irapuato. They lost, but we had a fun time laughing at the drunk guy yelling craziness the whole time. We got groceries at the Soriana (which brought back a ton of memories of Reynosa) and drove back to Cuchicuato. We stayed at Doña Martina's mom's house for a while, eating and chatting.

While we had been gone, a group of gringos had arrived in Tamaula. There are 11 of them, and they're from all over, but they're here with CHOICE Humanitarian. They're helping build a couple cisterns and helping at the goat cheese factory. When we got back, Santos went around the community with me to help tell my class about early class in the morning. I spent the night hanging out Yesenia, Oswaldo, and Esme, which seems to be a routine now. Overall, an excellent weekend.

Yesterday, we had English class early in the morning and then went out to sow Don Candido's father's field. Sowing means walking up and down each row and dropping beans or corn seeds one by one. The field, which is huge, is almost purely rock, which makes walking up and down a little more difficult. We sowed almost the entire field though and worked from about 10am to 3pm. By the end, I was sweating pretty hard (you wear long sleeves and jeans to protect your skin), and my ankle was pretty sore, but it felt great.

After our normal afternoon classes, we began our task of painting the tinaco. The tinaco is a cistern at the top of mountain that holds 5,000 liters of water that gets pumped in from the well. It's blue and pretty transparent, so the sun comes in and causes algae to grow inside. Our task was to clean the inside and paint the outside black to keep the sun out. Cleaning the inside was an adventure that Caroline, Ana Cristina, and Lupita got to experience. It was hot and smelled awful, but they got the job done. Painting the outside was easier than we'd thought, but we got covered with black paint that only comes out with paint thinner, which we ran out of. It was quite a painful experience trying to get it off our hands.

Today, two students from Universidad Iberoamericana arrived. They'll be staying in Irapuato, but coming to Tamaula during the week to do some sort of work in the community. The other Americans that are here are doing some cement work, so this afternoon, I'm going to try to see if they need help. I really miss working with cement! This weekend, we're taking our first group trip to Guanajuato City with the other 6 from UNC.

So far in Tamaula, I've taken very few pictures, which you know is very rare for me if you know me at all. I haven't wanted to be that American that's snapping away on her camera the whole time, but it's actually been nice. I've been keeping in mind something Jake told me when my camera died in Mexico City. He asked me what I thought people did before there were cameras when they saw something beautiful. I was kind of mad at first, being such a fan of photography, but after I thought about it more, I realized he had a point. It's been nice here to be able enjoy moments as they're happening, instead of worrying that I'm capturing it on my camera.