Hola, amigos y familia! This week I am in Mexico for a study abroad (and next week, too...) Here is a run down:
On Monday, we left BYU at 4 am, and arrived in time for a 7:10 flight to Phoenix. Then we flew to Guadalajara, Mexico. After waiting on a bus for an hour without air conditioning, we finally got out and starting walking around. We toured a cathedral and then went to a local market, where I got heat stroke. It was great fun. I sat at the front of the bus for the 4-hour drive to Irapuato, where we stayed in the Flamingo Hotel, which is surprisingly very nice. The next morning we exchanged money, packed our bags, and went to the grocery store before loading into a van and driving to the villages.
At the villages (we are staying in Mesa de Agirre, and walk through Cañada de Ortega to get to El Estanco), we all eat together in one place, and the women in the village make our food. It is delicious. Who knew that so few ingredients could make so many really good dishes? We sleep among the villagers, with two students each at different houses. Heidi and I are together, and we have the best host family ever. Our hostess is Ana (I don't know her husband's name), and she has lots of cute kids as well as a piglet kept in a pen next to our little hut which we've named Puercito, or little Pork. On Tuesday and Thursday nights, we got bucket baths, which are super cool and altogether much better than being sweaty. They're called bañitos.
Other things about the village... I played tag with a group of little boys aged 4 to 10, and had a blast. They kept on sitting on 'safe,' and so I made it a rule that when I was it (often, so the little boys could catch someone), I would count down and then the base would no longer be safe. It was a blast.
Okay, just for the record, the rest of this post will have no real order. It's just random thoughts about what has been happening.
On Tuesday we saw a baby goat get born (well, actually we barely missed it... but it still counts), and we saw a baby take her first steps. On Thursday we killed a nest of scorpions that were in our hut. We then proceeded to pull the bed away from any walls and wake up frequently throughout the night.
During the days, we've mostly been giving computer lessons on the three computers in the village's (El Estanco, not Mesa de Agirre) internet cafe. First we taught the family that owns the cafe, then we taught anyone who came in during our scheduled class time, and then we taught a bunch of schoolchildren. I took on an additional project, which makes me very grateful that I brought my own computer - I've been making videos and tutorials on how to create email accounts and navigate facebook and skype. It's taken a lot of time due to technical problems, but I'm finally progressing! We've also done some construction work, but it's a bit slow, as they're mostly small projects and there's not a lot of room for many people. The girls especially don't participate much. The men of the villages who work with us hand shovels and tools to the guys in our group, not the girls.
Oh, funny story: a truck of materials came on Thursday. The first truck had come on Wednesday, when I was down at the cafe. Both days we had to unload concrete bags from the truck, probably 50-75 pounds each. I went and started unloading, of course, and the men who'd delivered it all were very surprised. Apparently the two girls who'd helped on Wednesday had worked together on their bags of concrete. One of the men came up to me and told me in broken English: "I have never seen a woman lift one of these. Never." I was highly amused.
Another cool thing about the village: we have a guide named Beto who works with Choice, the NGO that is directing our activity. (Background info: he's a 23-year-old Mexican vet who can't get a job in his profession. He's also very funny and helps us translate a lot.) Most times when we go to or from El Estanco from our home base in Mesa de Agirre (about 2 miles on a hill), Beto will drive us in the truck. May I just say that I LOVE riding in the back of a truck? Seriously one of my favorite things ever, and it's making me contemplate buying a motorcycle one day.
Okay, one more funny story about the village: we have three guys with us who went on Spanish-speaking missions, and they and Beto do most of our translations. One of them was standing nearby when a village man came up to Beto, not knowing that he (Jordan) spoke Spanish. Here's an approximate dialogue of what they said:
Village man: "How do these Americans do it with white skin? Don't they just burn up?"
Beto: "I don't know. I think maybe they put something on their skin."
Awesome. Anyways, teaching the children has been fun, if a bit frustrating. I don't really get their accents, and so I have to ask them to repeat everything, even their names. Ah, well. Our group is a lot of fun, and I get along with almost all of them quite well. We have great times. I will update about anything I forgot about the village later tonight or tomorrow, and also post about leaving the village and visiting Guanajuato. Love you all!
<3
Eliza
