In Mexico... finally

May 1, 2008
Hola amigos!!! Well I made it. I’m here in Mexico. The fiesta went really well. We had about 30 people come and made $380 thanks to the gracious donation of all the food by my parents. It was a really fun time and the food was awesome!!! Thanks Alexis, Lindsay, Antony, Mum, Hannah, Robert and Kenyan for helping cook and get the house ready. I also want to thank Patti Soltys and Jeff Wilkinson for their donations and everyone who came to the fiesta.
My flight to Mexico was long and tiring. I left Saskatoon at 1:30pm and flew through Calgary and LA before arriving in Guadalajara at 4:30am Saskatoon time which was 5:30am Guadalajara time. I had lots of long layovers. A young guy from Projects Abroad named Jonatan met me at the airport here and took me to the office. I was totally sketched out because it was still completely dark out and to get to the office you have to drive down all these dodgy back streets… well to be fair they are only dodgy in the dark. At any rate, the office has no sign or anything outside and has a rusty old gate of a front door. Anyway… I was certain I was about to be sold into some underground prostitution ring. But we went inside, turned on the lights and it was an actual office with signs and posters and stuff. I got to wash up and have a much needed nap until 10:30am when Jonatan and Gorge (a guy training to work for Projects Abroad) took me on a tour of the city. The office is right next to a beautiful cathedral called the Catedral Expiatorio. We looked at that and then went for breakfast at this awesome, old, traditional restaurant filled with old men and a mariachi was playing for us… it was sooo cool. We ate the traditional breakfast of chilaquiles (baked tortilla pieces in salsa topped with cheese). So delicious! Then we went and saw a bunch more cool places: the main cathedral in Guadalajara (bigger but not as pretty as he Expiatorio), some beautiful parks, some government buildings with amazing murals inside depicting the history of Mexico, the biggest indoor market in the Western Hemisphere, and the oldest bar in Guadalajara for my first Mexican cerveza. This bar never used to have bathrooms because women weren’t allowed in bars until the 70s or something like that. Instead of a bathroom it had a trough in the floor along the bar so all you had to do was unzip and let ‘er go… no need to even leave the bar!
It is so bloody hot in this country I don’t even know what to do with myself. Apparently May is the hottest month of the year and this is the hottest summer Guadalajara has seen in over 100 years. It get to over 40 degrees midday! I was not prepared for this. I was wearing jeans and two t-shirts for my tour yesterday. I was dying by the end. I have had a perpetual headache since I got to this city from the heat… and I have never drunk so much water in my life…. And the smog in this city of 6 million people doesn’t help.
I was supposed to go to Ciudad Guzman last night but the guys who runs everything there is on holidays until Monday (it was National Children’s Day Yesterday and Labour Day today). Anyway, this means that I’m stuck in Guadalajara with nothing to do until Monday which suits me just fine. I’m staying with a host family here and two other volunteers. The house is packed with people. There are three generations of the family and an assortment of other random lodgers here… I honestly have no idea who they all are. So far I have gathered that my host mum is the head of the house and her daughter and daughter’s husband live here too with their young daughter Valeria. There is also a cousin or something and today I found a bunch of stuff on the bed next to mine that is not my stuff so I’m assuming someone else is moving in too. Oddly I never actually see anyone besides the volunteers and my host mum around the house.
Today I went to the market with a few of the volunteers and got well acquainted with the male population of the city. The constant harassment women face in this country is ridiculous. I could not even count how many times we were beeped at, whistled at, boldly stared at (one guy walked right up to me and just looked me up and down for what felt like an eternity with his mouth hanging open… so disgusting) hollered at, and generally harassed… someone even took photos of us - as if we wouldn’t notice. It’s really quite humorous… they never try to grab you or anything so it’s all quite harmless, just rather annoying. I’ve learned to tell people I only speak French… that way even the ones that know a little English can’t talk to me… it’s really quite brilliant!
Wow, so this post is getting really long. I’m typing it on my laptop in my room right now and will take it on my USB drive to the internet café sometime soon. I don’t have internet in my house but there is a cheap café that only charges 5 pesos per hour (that’s 50 cents Canadian). I still can’t get over how cheap things are here. A bottle of beer at the bar cost 15 pesos! For those mathematically challenged that’s 1.50 Canadian!!! Well, I’m going to have a nap now. It’s salsa night tonight!

5 de Mayo
So today is cinco de mayo which is Mexican independence day. It’s a huge deal in the states with all the maxicans who live there but apparently in Mexico it’s not really a big deal at all. The kids don’t go to school today but that is all I have seen so far that would tell me this is anything other than a normal day.
Anyway, salsa night was really fun. I met a bunch of the other volunteers including my roommate in Ciudad Guzman, Gemma. She is so cool. She’s in med school in England and is here volunteering at the hospital. She was going to Puerto Vallarta for the weekend and asked me if I wanted to come. I figured I didn’t really have much else to do and was getting a bit overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of Guadalajara. So we left the next morning on the bus (first class and it only cost $32). The drive was awesome! It took like 5 ½ hours but its was all through the mountains and there was the most beautiful scenery. We got to Vallarta and eventually found a cheap hotel (500 pesos/night) with a pool, beautiful courtyard, satellite tv and a private bathroom! It was sooo luxurious. We met up with Jous the guy who runs the projects in Guzman and walked around town, visited a few cool bars and then discovered that you can buy 1litre cups of beer to go from some bar for like 40 pesos!!! You can walk around town with booze in Mexico. I’ve discovered there isn’t much for rules of any kind in Mexico.
The next day Gemma and I went down to the beach and worked on our tans all day… being the stupid tourist that I am, I got horribly sunburnt. I’m still in pain like 2 days later. That evening we walked all up and down the beach and watched the sunset. By that time I was in great pain so we walked all the way back to the hotel and went to bed.
The next day (Sunday) we had to bus it to Guzman. We caught the bus at 10:30 in the morning and barely moved for the first hour or so the traffic was so bad. It took almost 7 hours to get back to Guadalajara! The bus to Guzman from there was only about an hour so we got into Guzman ant about 7 pm. I love Ciudad Guzman! It is a little city with about 150 000 people. I think Gemma, Alex (the other volunteer here) and I are the only white people in the whole city. Little kids who have never seen white people in real life before come up to us and stare or point and say ‘Güera’ which means blonde. They call white people güera whether or not we have blonde hair. But the men here don’t harass us like they did in Guadalajara. They might stare but I’ve only been whistled at once in two days. It is so refreshing.
My host family is awesome! My host Mum is called Sara and her daughter is called Fernanda. They are both sooo nice. They don’t speak English which is good for me because it forces me to practice my Spanish. Last night Gemma showed me around town a bit and made me order ice cream myself. So far she had been doing most of the talking for me. It’s funny how useless the Spanish is that I know. I could have a discussion about the politics of Costa Rica but I can’t even order ice cream. It’s quite ridiculous.
Today Fernanda took me to the Pharmacy to try and buy some things. It was so entertaining trying to explain to the clerks what I needed to buy. Thank God Fernanda was with me so I could sort of get the gist across to her and then she could explain to the clerks in proper Spanish. It was a really good time. I have faith in my Spanish getting lots better in time for school in July.
I went to my placement today at the rehab centre with Jous. I am so excited to start there tomorrow. There is the sweetest little boy there named Cristian who is about 7 years old. He immediately ran up to Jous and me and grabbed on to us and told us that we were going to adopt him and we were his new mum and dad. It was so sweet. He has a ridiculous amount of energy and was running all over the place showing us around and introducing us to people. The rest of the boys were a little shyer than Cristian. They came up to me with curiosity and said hello but not much more. They all come from really rough places… little Cristian even has tattoos. The whole place looks a bit like a jail with high walls, curling barbed wire and guards here and there but they seem to be doing really good work there. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow and be a part of it.

Fiesta Mexicana tickets on sale now!!!!

Put a smile on his face.

My final fundraiser is going to be held Friday 25 April. It will be an authentic mexican dinner/fiesta at my house served up all-you-can-eat buffet-style. Also included in ticket price is non-alcoholic beverages. I'm also going to put up for sale all of the remaining artwork from my art sale. There will be 2 dinners: one starting at 5pm and the second starting at 7pm. Tickets will be sold in advance only, prices are as follows: Adults $20, students/seniors $10, children 10 and under free. BYOB. A maximum of 25 tickets will be sold for each dinner so get your tickets soon. For tickets contact me at mdwilkinson@shaw.ca or by phone (I won't put my number up here for all to see but if you know it, feel free to call it). After dinner there will be latin music and dancing and maybe even a campfire (weather permitting). I'm very much looking forward to seeing you all there!

A change of plans

Today I received my placement information for my project in Mexico. As it turns out the care home I was going to be working in is no longer taking volunteers. I'm not sure if this is because they have closed or for some other reason. While I am a little disappointed right now I think after some time to think about it I will be happy with my new placement. I will now be working at a rehabilitation centre for young boys (ages 10-18) who have had problems with drugs or have been living on the streets. The centre aims to provide a safe place where they can receive attention in order to help them readapt to a more healthy family and society life. I will be working under Dr. Karla Frias Zuñiga and my job will be to help out with the maintenance of the facility and to organize activities for the boys (painting, singing and sports). The centre is called Centro de Integracion Juvenil (Centre for Juvenile Integration) and is located in Ciudad Guzman which is a small city 2 hours from Guadalajara. Ciudad Guzman is located in a valley next to a lake and is surrounded by mountains. Apparently it is quite gorgeous.

I'm actually quite happy to be going to Ciudad Guzman instead of Guadalajara because I will now have to opportunity to see life in a little city and a huge metropolis (I will still be studying Spanish for 5 weeks in Guadalajara). My homestay family consists of Sara Loya Hernandez (my homestay mom) and her 8-year-old daughter Maria. They tell me Sara loves to cook and bake so I'm REALLY excited for some proper Mexican cuisine! She also paints so perhaps I will get a chance to do a little of that too! I'm getting more and more excited about my new placement even as I'm writing this. I think this will be a great experience!

Art Sale pretty good

Well I have to say the art sale was not as big of a success as I anticipated... I had a profit of somewhere between $50-100... I never calculated the exact total as I didn't really want to know the exact amount. It was far more effort than it was worth in any case. I would actually put on another sale another day to sell everything I didn't sell yet, but I am simply far too busy with school now to take a whole day off... maybe I'll do one in the fall just for fun. Thanks to everyone who donated work and to everyone who bought stuff. And I want to thank Dave Staples and family for their recent personal donation. As for those of you interested in my Mexican Fiesta Dinner Extravaganza... I will be starting to sell tickets at the end of March. I will be selling only 50 tickets so buy them early if you want to come! $10 for students/seniors, $20 for adults, kids 10 and under free.

Art Sale!!!

Hola amigos! My fundraising art sale is officially going to be held Tuesday March 4th from 9am-4pm. I think it will be quite amazing and everyone who lives in Saskatoon must come out! It will be in the Arts Tunnel at the university (between the Arts Building and Place Riel). I have paintings, photos and drawing from myself, prints from Emily Corbett, Susan Andrews Grace and Alison Cooley, photos from Dougal Craig and Mike Tuney, some pottery by Maureen Bingham and several other works by Lindsay Glines, Jan Norris and a few others who I intend to harrass for their art in the days to come. I hope that everyone will come out and support the project! Also I would like give a few more thank to people who have given donations to my project since my last post: Bill and Maureen Bingham, Brenda Baker, Doug and Lona Wilkinson, Eleanor Cardoza, Keith Wilkinson and Dee Newman. Much love to all!!!

Beer night success

So my fundraising beer night was last night and was a smashing success. 40 people came and I had a profit of $400! I would like to give a shout out to Grant Lagimodiere for donating a keg! And thanks to everyone who came out! I also want to thank Marcie and Murray Benson, Isaac Browne, and Bettina Grandey for their generous donations. The generosity and warm wishes that I have received over the past few weeks continues to amaze me. Much love to all.

Let the fundraising begin!

Hola amigos!!! I am so excited that I have now been accepted by Projects Abroad for the HIV/AIDS Project in Guadalajara this summer. But now I am facing the very daunting task of raising at least $2000 by the 29th of April when I will be flying to Mexico. I have come up with several fundraising ideas that I hope you will find to be quite ingenious. First on my agenda is a beer night that I have scheduled for the 26th of January at Winston's Pub from 7-9 pm. The cost is $10/person and this entitles you to as much beer as you can drink from the keg I have purchased. A keg costs $150 so I need at least 30 people to show up to make this worth my while. So I encourage you all to come out and support the project!

Next on my agenda will be an art sale at the university. This will be held mid-late March in the Arts Tunnel. Right now I'm calling on all you artists, aspiring artists, and/or crafty people to donate artwork, photography, crafts, frames... anything that I could sell from $1-40... I don't think students will buy anything more than $40. I also hope that you will all come out and buy stuff!

Finally, on April 25, I will be hosting a Mexican Fiesta. Tickets will be sold in advance for $10 for students and $20 for everyone else except little kids who can come for free. I will be serving an AMAZING authentic Mexican meal and non-alcoholic beverages... all-you-can-eat buffet style. BYOB.

If you are interested in any of these events, leave a comment here, call me, or send me an email. Also, if you don't live in the city or would just like to make a personal donation to the project, I will gratefully accept cash, personal cheques (contact me for my address if needed) or you can use your PayPal account to send a donation to me at mdwilkinson@shaw.ca.

Also, once I come home I hope to be giving presentations on my experiences at the HIV/AIDS care home in schools or to any groups that are interested. So if you are a teacher or are involved in a group that would benefit from hearing about my experiences, let me know. I might be more inclined if you give me a generous donation... just kidding. This is something I strongly believe in and will happily spread the word for free.

Thank-you all for your support in this project and I hope to see everyone out at my events or be hearing from you soon.

Muchas gracias!!!