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.
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.
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