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.

sírvate más

I'm pretty sure our host mom here (Doña Mago) wants us to leave here fifty pounds heavier. Two minutes into every meal, it's "Sírvate más tú Colín" or "¿Te traigo un plátanito?" ("Get yourself some more, Colleen," and "Can I bring you a banana?"). I really am loving the eating schedule here. We eat pretty much right when we get up, a meal called almuerzo. Usually it's eggs, frijoles, tortillas, and nopales (cactus), and it usually fills me up. When we get back from English class at 2:00, we eat comida, which is usually about as heavy as almuerzo. At night, our cena is usually some avena (oatmeal) and a banana or mango. It's perfect!

Things are going well here. I am loving teaching English to my class of 6 kids ranging in age from 12 to 14. Today, for something fun to do on a Friday, we spent half of class playing Hangman, or Orcado, with English words for fruits and animals. We're also tutoring the students in different subjects afterschool, so I'm getting a refresher in geometry and algebra....in Spanish.

I'm also getting to know some of the younger kids here, and I love spending time with them. An hour of my Wednesday night was spent playing a game that Yesenia and I made up called ejercicio (exercise) because it literally is just that. We sit facing each other, holding hands, and do crunches back and forth. It gives me an ab workout, and it makes them laugh, so it must be a good game.

Living here is so tranquilo. I've loved having time to be in the Word and in prayer, and I pray that God would do big things here. I'm enjoying reading "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper, and he's reminded me to live in a way that magnifies Christ. He says, "The way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life's gifts." I have to remember that while I'm here. God has given me so many gifts (for example, the opportunity to be here), but I have to remember to glorify the Giver, not the gifts.

Paz y amor!

"Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him." -Philippians 3:7-9

he is my victory and he is here

Greetings from Tamaula, Guanajuato, Mexico!

I finally have a chance to sit down and share what´s been going here. The past two weeks have been absolutely locas! I´ve been blessed to see a few different parts of Mexico and hang out with some really amazing people.

The first few days were spent in Puebla and Cholula (a smaller town outside of Puebla) with three other americanos and our friend Miguel. We stayed in a hostel and at the house of a friend of his. We saw a ton of churches, rode a double decker tour bus (superturista, I know), ate great food, and enjoyed the nightlife. While in Cholula, we got to hang out with some exchange students from the U.S. and from France that are studying at UDLA (Universidad de las Americas). On Saturday, we left there for Mexico City, where we joined up with other UNCers from the project and our D.F. friends Kari and Kike. In a city that is home to more than 20 million people, there was a ton to do. We cheered on the Mexico team as they beat Chile 1 to 0 at the Estadio Azteca (the largest stadium in Latin America). We enjoyed more nightlife, walked around the city, took another superturista tour bus, climbed to the top of Castillo del Chapultec, and visited Iberoamericana, the university that Miguel, Kari, and Kike are about to graduate from. Jake and Tomás even played in a soccer game with some students and profes!

Within 24 hours, we transitioned from the second largest city in the world to a rural community of 218 habitantes. It´s hard to believe that we´ve already been living here in Tamaula for a week! Tamaula is a small community at the top of a mountain, about 30 minutes from Irapuato (the closest city). I´m here with Caroline and Tomás from UNC, helping with the Fundación Comunitario del Bajio. We´re basically hanging out in the community and helping out in whatever way we can. So far, that means teaching English to students in the secundaria everyday for an hour and tutoring them in physics, chemistry, math, and more English after school. We´re also doing some other activities with them, like playing fútbol and teaching them computer skills.

Another project that I´ve decided to pursue is editing their English textbooks. There is a huge amount of errors in their books that a nonnative speaker probably wouldn´t pick up on. So, I´m finding all the errors and sending them to the textbook company with a hope that they will fix them for the next edition! I´ll also be teaching the secundaria teachers English so that they can better teach their students next year.

It´s been a real blessing to be able to hang out with people from the community. The first night we were invited to play fútbol with some of the guys here, and I scored 2 goals, thank you very much! The other day, we played a game called balote with some of the girls from the prepa. It´s like baseball and kickball, but you use your arm as a bat. Because the campo is so rocky and uneven, I fell and unfortunately resprained my ankle, but all is good!

I can´t wait to spend even more time in the community. I´ve been a little discouraged not being able to understand everything everyone says, but I continue to pray for clarity, in understanding what they are saying, in understanding their lives, and in understanding what our role here is. I pray that in the midst of what we´re doing here, we would be able to shine Christ´s light in the community.

"Shine on, shine on, and let the others see you´ve got your victory."