Put your reading glasses on. This is a long one.

June 27, 2008

I made part one of my donation to the centre this week. The boys are all in serious need of new shoes. Most of them wear shoes with holes in the bottoms and their socks are in much the same shape. So I asked the boys what kind of shoes they would get if they could have any shoes they wanted. They all said Converse All-Stars. So this week I bought them all new All-Stars and good quality sports socks to go with them. The boys had the hugest smiles on their faces all week. One of the new boys, Choco, refused to accept the gift. He has a lot of pride and doesn’t want to take charity from anyone. He made a bunch of excuses but I knew that was the real reason. They are going to keep his shoes at the centre until another boy comes along who needs them. I took my camera to get photos of all the boys and their new shoes and ended up with a whole pile of photos of the boys trying to look hot to give to their little girlfriends at the school down the road. Some of the photos are quite priceless. It felt so good to see the boys with new shoes… I felt like I was making a real difference in their lives. The shoes were quite cheap so I plan to also buy some games for the centre (so they have more to do than just play football and chess) and lots of underwear, more socks and coloured shoelaces for each of the boys. That will be part two of my donation. And of course a whole bunch of photos. I’m so excited! Thank-you to everyone who made donations and/or came out to my fundraising events. There is no greater reward than seeing the smiles on these kids’ faces.

June 30, 2008

As previously mentioned, I went to Guadalajara this weekend. Erick (one of the guys from Tapalpa) picked us (Jess and I) up from the bus station and then we went to a little Italian place for supper. Then we got an impromptu tour of the city trying to figure out where Brittany was staying so that we could pick her up and go out to Fernando’s grandmother’s country home/mansion. It is the most amazing place. It has a huge garden and a pool and even its own church! We spent the evening there relaxing with Fernando, Erick, Aldo and their friends, Rebecca and her boyfriend whose name I don’t remember. The next morning we went out to the very cool Tianguis cultural market where I bought some gorgeous hand-made jewlery. It was a funny little market full of contradicting shops of punky-emo clothes and music (and no lack of emo kids in skinny jeans and Sex Pistols t-shirts), traditional art, and religious paraphernalia. After spending all our money we went to Fernando’s house in a beautiful upper-class neighbourhood and I had my first shower in two months that had any amount of water pressure. It was like a dream! Jess and I met Fernando’s beautiful sister, cousin and grandmother and they fed us an indescribably delicious meal. They have the tiniest dog I have ever seen and parrots in the massive garden that say ‘Hola’, and a couple turtles and another two dogs… it’s like living in a zoo.

Then we all went down to the historical centre where I had an appointment to get a tattoo. A bunch of the Canadians who were studying in Guzmán were in Guadalajara a while back and saw this tattoo covered guy who had this tiny little Doberman puppy with him. So they were making comments about the puppy thinking the guy only spoke Spanish and then he responded to them in perfect English and an American accent. They all had a good laugh and found out that the guy is a tattoo artist who grew up in Chicago and decided to move down to Mexico a couple years ago and now owns a small tattoo shop in the centre. About six of the Canadians followed him up to his shop and got tattoos. He has over 15 years experience and I saw the awesome tattoos he had done on the Canadians. Then a week or so later I was playing soccer with the boys at work and noticed a beautiful hummingbird at bush full of flowers next to the field. After that day, I kept seeing hummingbirds around the centre and at the field where we go play soccer almost everyday. I decided I wanted a tattoo that would always remind me of the boys. The boys have become so special to me and I have learned so much from them. I love them to pieces. I’m going to cry like a baby on my last day of work. Anyway, I got a tattoo of a hummingbird hovering above a flower on the top of my foot with a vine wrapping around my ankle. It will always remind me of the boys and how beautiful they are and how they are fighting to survive in a world that has cast them aside. Carla (one of the Canadians) very accurately described the pain of a tattoo on your foot as a hot steak knife being dragged across your skin. It was viciously painful but definitely worth it.

So after the tattoo ordeal, Fernando, Erick, Jess and I drove out to Chapala where the largest lake in Mexico is and where their friend (the boyfriend of Rebecca) has a beautiful holiday home. On the way we stopped at the best burrito place in Mexico, I reckon. We spent the evening relaxing and the next morning went to the town for some yummy doughnuts and went to a little market where we bought tequila cocktails in clay pots (you get to keep the pot!) and corn-flavoured ice cream! I also bought new sunglasses for $5 that “make me look fast” as Fernando put it. We then went back to the house and watched the second half of the Euro final where Germany lost and made me owe Fernando a six-pack of beer. After the game we went back to Guadalajara and hopped on the bus back to Guzmán. We were welcomed home by pouring rain that turned the streets into rivers (they haven’t discovered storm sewers in Mexico yet) which made for a very interesting walk to the pub to see the Scottish girls who were celebrating their last night in Guzmán as they have now finished their placement here.
The lovely Mexicans that we spent the weekend with invited us on a camping trip to “the best beaches in Mexico” according to them, next weekend. I can’t wait. If this past weekend was any indication, it will be an amazing good time.

July 8, 2008

We have had quite the adventurous week here in Mexico. So on Thursday a new volunteer named Sophie came from France. She doesn’t speak English but speaks quite good Spanish. I think Jess and I both had headaches by the end of the night. It is so draining spending an entire evening speaking Spanish, French and English. I slept like the dead that night. On Friday at work some of the boys had their families there to visit. They were all wearing their best clothes (including the shoes I bought them) and were all very excited all day. In the time that I was there only three of the boys’ families showed up. I nearly cried because Güero’s sister was supposed to come to visit him but she never came. I have never seen that boy look so sad. He just sat by the window watching and hoping for the van to come with her in it. It was absolutely heartbreaking. I sincerely hope that she came after I left for the day. Adrian’s family didn’t come either. I don’t even know if he has family. Adrian isn’t usually very cuddly like some of the other boys who always want hugs from me. He’s actually generally quite aggressive towards everyone. But, on Friday he just curled up in my lap for hours asking me how to say things in English and asking me about Canada. It was a really emotional day.

One of the people who came to visit was an ex-patient named Jovani. He was really funny and I spent quite a long time chatting with him about nothing in particular. He is now 20 years old and so must have been a patient at least a couple of years ago since the centre is only for boys up to age 18. But, he was telling me that Cristian, Güero, Choco and Adrian were all there when he was. I can’t believe these boys have been at this centre for so long. I’m pretty sure most of them are like Choco who finished his treatment but relapsed and now is back but it still amazes me that they have been there so long.

So, Friday evening Erick and Fernando picked up Jess and I and we all drove down to Michoacán to the beaches trying to avoid crabs and frogs on the road. The heat and humidity there was unbelievable. It’s so crazy that you can drive for three or four hours and have such a dramatic change in climate. We got stopped by the military on the way and they made us get out of the truck and searched though all our stuff. I guess drug smuggling is a pretty big problem in the area. Anyway, that all went by without any trouble and we arrived in Maruata in one piece. It was pouring rain and sought refuge in a local guy’s house/beach hut until the rain eased off a bit and the boys could set up the tents under the palapas (little hut things made of palm trees on the beach). While we were waiting for the rain to stop a little crab wandered into the house and the guy told us that the only time they eat them is right after the first rain. I didn’t catch exactly why. There were crabs everywhere on the beach; tiny fast ones called Senoritas because they are impossible to catch; hermit crabs of all sizes and some bigger meaner ones that like to pinch. It finally decided to stop raining and we went to bed. It was amazing in the morning to sit up and have the ocean greet me. There aren’t many places in the world where they will still let you camp right on the beach. And this beach was spectacular. A bunch more friends came to join us on Saturday (Ricardo, Memo, Andrea and two others I hadn’t met before Mariana and Omar). We decided to move to a different beach that would be less crowded just down the road. It was just as beautiful as the first if not more so. We saw a gorgeous sunset and sat around chatting all night. As we were chatting a tiny baby turtle stumbled upon our camp in its search for the ocean. I guess it’s turtle season right now and the beaches we were at were full of nests. We saw two newly hatched babies that night and I got to hold one in my hand. It was an amazing sensation to hold a brand new baby in the palm of my hand. That night the tropical storm we had been hearing about hit in full force. The tent Jess and I were sleeping in was not exactly what I would call waterproof and we nearly drown trying to get out of the tent and into the truck fifty feet away. By morning the rain had more or less stopped but it was still cloudy and miserable. By the time we got everything packed up it was around 1pm and then we went for a leisurely lunch and hit the road around 4. We got pummelled by rain almost the whole way back to Guzmán. We were nearly out of gas when we left after lunch but had enough to get to the station. However, the first station we went to was closed. The second station was twenty minutes away but we made it. However, about ten seconds before we were going to put in gas the power went out and the pumps stopped working. And apparently gas cans do not exist in Mexico. I asked Fernando if they sell them and he asked me what you would need anything like that for. For a situation exactly like this, Fernando. So anyway, we waited there for a while hoping the power would come back on soon. It didn’t. Memo and the others were in his truck which had gas so they drove on to find the next gas station. It was twenty kilometres down the road. We decided to gamble and try to make it and if we didn’t they would come save us. On the way we got stuck in a bit of traffic as a tree had fallen across the highway and I haven’t seen rain like this since the storm that collapsed our greenroom roof in Australia. At any rate, we didn’t make it. So they filled up empty water bottles and whatever else they could find with gas and brought it to us. We had run out of gas about a kilometre away from the gas station. The whole adventure was really quite funny. We blame karma.

So yesterday I was terribly ill. My entire body ached: my head hurt, my back was killing me, my legs ached… it was awful. And I have never been so tired in my life. But today I feel fine. I have no idea what happened. But Jess and I decided we should start packing today and she was getting together all her documentation to get out of the country and discovered she has lost a wallet containing her visa and the equivalent to about $90. So she gets to go visit the police today to report it and then go to Guadalajara to go to the embassy to get a new visa. Good times!

some recent photos

The girls catching some sun in Manzanillo, Lucha Libre, Me at Lucha Libre, the crew in Guzman, my mexicano mates Hector and Gibert

long time no post... almost up to date now

June 18, 2008

Two more boys ran away over the weekend: Cristian Chico and Manuel. I’m sad to see Cristian Chico go because it really scares me where he will end up, and it breaks my heart to see Manuel go. He was definitely one of my favourites. He really loved to learn English so I had taught him how to say “How are you?” and “I’m good”. Then he wanted to impress some girls so I taught him to say “How are you, beautiful?” and then he got all confused so every time I would ask him “How are you?” he would say “Beautiful!” It was absolutely adorable. I miss him so much.

I learned Luis’ story today from one of the psychologists at the centre. It turns out that his mom is in jail for drug trafficking and his dad has died from alcoholism and his sister who is the only one left to take care of him is about 19 years old and has three kids of her own to take care of. So Luis was just living on the streets taking care of himself and getting into a lot of trouble in the meantime. Luis is my favourite boy at the centre. He has bleached his hair blonde so we are “Güeros Unidos” (blondes united) and he always says that he is Canadian and asks me if I will take him to Canada with me when I go home. He is always smiling and joking around (minus the times he’s getting into fights and whatnot) despite all the crap he’s gone through in his life. He is a great inspiration for me… all of the kids are.

This week the boys have discovered the joy of huge tickle wars. They basically involve me chasing them around for hours trying to tickle them till they cry. It’s absolutely exhausting but soooo fun. These boys have a never-ending reserve of energy. They never get tired. We will play soccer in the morning, then eat breakfast and have a lesson for half an hour or so and then play more soccer and then have tickle wars until it’s time for me to go home. I don’t understand how they don’t get tired. I’m also envious of the afternoon/evening staff who get the boys after I have spent all day trying tire them out. But I’m getting lots of exercise which is good.

In other news, I’m thinking I might be coming home about a month earlier than I had originally planned. I have been here two months already and while my Spanish has improved a lot I’m not anywhere near where I would need to be as an advanced student and thus receive credit for my courses here. I’m quite certain that another four weeks here will still not quite get me there. So anyway, it would be a big waste of money to take the classes and not get credit for them. Yes, my Spanish would improve but I have a lot more reasons to come home than to stay. And the entire motivation to come down here and take the classes in the first place was for fear that I would have a schedule conflict next year and not be able to graduate. But, the course schedule is up and even with the extra two Spanish classes everything will work out. There is one linguistics course I want to take that is not offered next year but I can still graduate without it and then just take it for fun later on. So I might be seeing you all around the 23^rd of July instead of the 23^rd of August. Thinking that I may have only five more weeks left here is a strange thought. It’s exciting but at the same time quite sad because I’m not ready to leave quite yet. But I figure that five weeks from now I will be more than ready to come home.

June 20, 2008

This week at work has been pretty crazy. I have been teaching thirteen-year-old Jorge to read and write. It makes me so sad to think that this boy barely knows the alphabet and doesn’t know how to write his own name but when I was thirteen I was reading novels and writing poetry and short stories (not good ones but I could still do it). Everyday these boys remind me of how blessed I have been in my life. It is so rewarding helping Jorge read and write. Every time he reads a word and every time he finishes an exercise he is just beaming with pride. It makes me so happy that I’m able to help put that smile on his face.

I was talking to one of the psychologists the other day about life at the centre and he was telling me that the boys are very much driven by the need to feel. This is why they are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and why they always want to hug and kiss everyone and why they love the tickle wars. But he also told me that the boys frequently try to rape each other. I wasn’t particularly shocked by this but the way he said it, like it was totally normal and there wasn’t anything to be done about it… well… that shocked me a lot. The youngest boy there, Chuy, is such a little sweetie but he never wants to play with the other boys and the others often take out their aggression on him. It terrifies me what is happening to this boy when none of the staff is around. Now I understand why the boys run away.

We got two new boys today. One of them is 14 or 15 years old and is called Choco. He has been at the centre before and finished his treatment but he relapsed and so he’s back now. The other one arrived just before we left for the day and I didn’t catch his name. He’s about 13 or 14, I think. I’m glad to have new boys. The place had been feeling pretty empty with just the remaining six. I can’t wait to get to know the new boys. I’m sad I’ll have only three weeks to do it before my time at the centre is up.

June 25, 2008

I just spent the weekend in the most delightful little mountain town called Tapalpa. It’s quite touristy and I can see why. This town is so beautiful. I fell in love immediately. I went with Brittany (an American girl who works at the centre with me) and my roommate Jess. We got there around 4pm and spent a little time walking around thoroughly enjoying the culture of the town: men riding their horses down the streets, children playing with firecrackers, amazing artisan markets and sweet shops. We found a lovely little hotel with a beautiful room for the three of us and guess how much it cost: 400 pesos! That’s less than $40!!! It was amazing. We spent the evening shopping and I bought a whole bunch of really beautiful stuff. Then we had some food and went and sat in the street and had some drinks (you’re allowed to drink in the streets in lots of places in Mexico). We decided that we should holler rude phrases at men walking past (give them a taste of their own medicine) and in the process met a really nice group of four guys who offered to take us waterskiing and wake boarding the next day. We jumped on that opportunity. They are all quite well-travelled and one of them had actually been to Saskatoon! It blew my mind! Usually when I tell Mexicans where I’m from they look at me like I’m crazy and there can’t possibly exist a place with a name like that. A couple of them spoke really nice French and they all spoke really good English. We had a great time with them.

The next day they picked us up and drove us out to the beautiful mansion of a country home that one of their uncles own to pick up the boat. After driving around for an eternity trying to find a suitable location to launch the boat, we ended up taking down a section of barbed wire fence and taking the boat down the steep slope to the water. It was hilarious but successful without too much drama. We were all very hungover so we never got in the water (I also didn’t have a bathing suit with me) but the guys had a good time wakeboarding and it was fun to watch. After a couple hours the storm clouds started to roll in so we headed back to the house to drop off the boat and then the guys took us out for lunch before putting us on the bus back to Guzmán. They were such genuinely nice guys. It was so refreshing to meet nice Mexican guys rather than the standard creepy ones whistling and hooting at us. This weekend we are going to Guadalajara to visit them and let them show us the sights. It should be a really awesome time.

June 13, 2008

I went to work this Monday and found out that Uriel had run away over the weekend. Tuesday night, Toribio ran away too. The centre is not the same without them. I miss them terribly and hate to think where they might end up. On Thursday the stress of the week really caught up with me. I felt like a little kid. I was so incredibly exhausted, I got home from work and just started crying for no reason, and then I had a three hour siesta. All week at work they cancelled the daily lesson and just watched movies. The rainy season started on the weekend and the boys had been getting really restless and aggressive; fighting a lot and what-not. So, to calm them down, they put on a least one movie each day.

I got a new roommate on Monday. Her name is Jess, she’s 23 and from England. I’m so happy to have a roommate again. I was so bored and lonely without one. Jess is great. I couldn’t have asked for a better roomie. Her placement with Projects Abroad is at a nursery/daycare sort of place for a couple of months.

Other than that not a whole lot have been going on. There are three other volunteers who came on Monday also. They are from Scotland doing a paediatric nursing placement at a nursery in a town about 20 minutes from Guzmán. They will only be in Guzmán for three weeks and then they go to Guadalajara for another three. Kristen and Tyler left today which makes me a little sad. It really sucks staying here for so long because everyone keeps leaving. It seems the standard placement length in one month. In the time that I am here in Guzmán I will see five volunteers come and go. But, I only have four more weeks at my placement before I’m off to Guadalajara. It seems so crazy that I have been here seven weeks already and I will be home in ten more. I count my time in weeks now; ten weeks feels a lot shorter than two and a half months.

I can’t wait to come home. As much as I love it here, and as much as I love my work, I miss home so much. Way more than I thought I would. I think I’m actually getting quite tired of travelling on my own. I so badly want to share all this with someone. I’m also getting really tired of using internet cafes all the time. I just want to be able to turn on my computer and have internet. I have discovered that I can take my laptop down to the town centre and have free wireless internet there. But, that still means I have to walk all the way down to the town centre. Yes, I’m lazy, I know. Through all my travels in the last year or so, I am really starting to appreciate Canada (and even Saskatoon) for all that it is. You don’t realize what a great place Canada really is until you’ve lived anywhere else, I think. And I’m not saying that just because I can get internet in my room… I mean everything: healthcare, education, social programs, standard of living… the list goes on.

Oh the sweet sweet smell of rain!!!!

June 8, 2008

Tut tut, it looks like rain!!! It rained for the very first time today. In fact it is pouring rain right now. Well there have been a few nights that it has rained a bit but that doesn’t count. Now the rainy season has officially started!!! I am sooooo happy! Wow there was just some lightning that was so close I heard it. Not just the booming thunder that followed but the zap of the lightning. I don’t think I’ve ever heard lightning before. I think I will be investing in an umbrella today. I never thought that I would say it but I actually think I prefer freezing cold to horrible heat. At least when it is cold you can go inside and be warm. There is no escape from the heat here. It’s no different from winters back home in the sense that you still can’t go outside and do anything. It’s just too hot. Thankfully in the city where I live it gets cool at night. The heat is so bad here that our turtle died on Monday and on Wednesday Jous’ dog died. Hooray for the rainy season. What a glorious day!

Well all week I didn’t really do much. I suffered some severe dehydration on Monday and Tuesday and missed both days of work. This made me really sad because I never got to say good bye to Marcos who is now gone to Guadalajara. There is a new volunteer from LA named Brittany who came on Tuesday and is now working at the centre with me. Jous went to the centre with her on Tuesday to introduce her to everyone and discovered I hadn’t been at work all week. He came to the house took one look at me and asked if I had been drinking any water. My skin was all dry and my lips were cracked and I was dizzy and exhausted. He wanted to take me to the hospital but I opted to just drink as much water as physically possible over the next 48 hours. I felt fine later that day. Since then I’ve been making sure I drink lots and lots of water. We got two more new boys at the centre bringing the grand total to ten. Another one named Marcos who is about 15 or 16 years old and the little, chubby 12-year-old Chui (I don’t know how he spells it… pronounced Chewy). They are both real sweethearts. Very quiet and not at all trouble-makers like most of the other boys. Chui will always just come sit next to me and usually not even say a word; just smile his innocent little smile. Marcos is really into reading my Spanish-English dictionary and learning new words.

This weekend has been, well, interesting. On Friday I was feeling very sad because for a number of reasons I couldn’t get through to call Alexis for his birthday so Brittany and I went out for ice-cream to make ourselves feel better (I think she’s been a bit homesick too) and sat on a park bench chatting until it started pouring rain on us. The streets were like rivers and the thunder was deafening so we rolled up our pants and ran for it to our respective houses. I liked that walk home because usually you need to watch for cockroaches at night (I hate cockroaches) but they were all in hiding in the rain. On Saturday a bunch of the Canadians and us volunteers went to the pool. After some lunch at a health food restaurant (brilliant find!) and after getting terribly lost, we finally found the pool just in time for the clouds to roll in and take away our sun. That night we went to Lucha Libre!!!! It was brilliant! If you aren’t familiar with Lucha Libre, it is Mexican wrestling very much reminiscent of WWE. It literally translates as Free Fighting aka no rules. It was soooo hilarious! Everyone sits in the stands screaming random profanities at the wrestlers while the wrestlers pretend to fight each other. It’s all very dramatic with the wrestlers wearing masks and lots of spandex. It was a really good time.

Afterwards we went to a club called Plush that I will not be going back to. I have discovered that it wasn’t only the bar in Manzanillo where the guys are super-creepy and horribly insistent. This bar was just like it. I couldn’t be alone for three seconds without being hassled. I would escape from one guy and immediately be accosted by another. I would be dancing with a group of my girlfriends and every two seconds someone would come up behind us and start grinding on us or grabbing our butts. I think my clubbing days in Mexico are over. I can’t deal with this harassment.

Manzanillo

June 2, 2008

This weekend Kristen, Tyler, Mieke, Carla (Canadian girl here taking some courses along with 25 other Canadians) and I went down to Manzanillo. Manzanillo is more or less a little resort town on the coast. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort that cost us a whopping $140 each for a huge mansion of a room for two nights and all the food and booze we could stuff into our bodies. This was the first time I had ever stayed at an all-inclusive resort. I actually quite enjoyed it. We were the only white people there so everyone got to know us pretty fast. There was this one waiter named Jaime who seemed to work wherever we went. He was so funny. The first night we watched the “show” Hairspray. Basically they bought the movie soundtrack and made up dances to all the songs… there was no dialog whatsoever. It was so hilarious… all these Mexicans acting as white and black people from the sixties. You really couldn’t tell which ones were supposed to be the black characters and who were the white ones. I have never laughed so hard. After the show we went to the disco where we first met our favourite waiter. It was a good night full of drinking and dancing. The next day we spent at the beach/pool and work on our tans. The waves were huge and the water was so warm so, we grabbed some boogie boards and spent some time on the waves intermittently getting rocked by the waves and filling our sinuses with salt water. That night we went to the fancy Italian restaurant at the resort where we had a four-course meal accompanied by wine followed by a Mexican coffee served in a goblet and then our waiter poured flaming brandy and tequila over it. It was so amazing. We stayed there until they closed and then walked down to the disco with Jaime where he would continue working. We gave him a giant tip.

That night, however, we found out how creepy drunk, Mexican guys can be. At the beginning of the night we were dancing up a storm but it got so unbearably hot in that building. So we really just wanted to sit down and relax. These guys just didn’t get it and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think I told at least three guys in very clear Spanish that no I didn’t want to dance, no I didn’t want that drink, no I didn’t even want to talk to them and no I didn’t like them and please go away right now. At one point there were three of us girls sitting at our table and at least seven guys standing around us trying to get us to dance. Tyler was getting quite a kick out of the spectacle. We ended up leaving before midnight to get away from all these guys. It was so ridiculous.

The next day we had to check out at noon and then took the bus back to Guzmán. I saw my very first mango tree on the ride. They are the craziest plants. The fruit grows way out at the end of the branches and hangs from a little vine-like thing. It looks so funny to see this big heavy fruit hanging from and skinny little vine on an ity-bitty branch. I also saw my first real hibiscus flowers at the resort and have decided that banana trees are awesome. I also saw the plant they make tequila from that I don’t remember the name of and palm oil plantations and a whole bunch of cactus… I really feel like I’m in Mexico when I see wild cactus all over the place. They actually eat cactus here too. It’s really nice and apparently really good for you… full of anti-oxidants and what-not. We drove through a little forest fire on the way back. The heat was unbelievable! It was already like 30 degrees outside… add fire to that and wow. Today it was so hot here. It was 35 degrees in the shade! Where are you rainy season?!?!

Mis Niños

Thug Life (Jorge and I); Luis and I

Cristian Chico; Cristian Grande

Cristian Chico, Luis and volunteer Luis playing chess, Toribio watching tv; Marcos

Cristian Chico and I; Manuel

Soccer in the compound; Luis and I

Jorge and Manuel; Cristian Grande

Uriel aka El Grande; Marcos and I

Adrian; Adrian

Luis; Cristian Grande

May 27, 2008

I can’t wait for the rainy season to start here. I am soooooo hot!!!! All I do in the afternoons here is sleep. I get home from work, stuff myself full of Sra. Sara’s amazing food, and go have a nice long siesta. Today I’m going to see if I can survive without a siesta… but I don’t have much faith in the plan. We have two new boys at the centre this week that arrived over the weekend. They are both 13 years old but are nearly as small as my 8-year-old host sister because of malnutrition and drugs. Their names are Jorge and Manuel (I love how ridiculously Mexican everyone’s names are). They are both really sweet kids. They took to me immediately unlike some of the other boys who are just starting to warm up to me now. I’m getting over my bout of culture shock already… yes my money is gone but I just can’t stay mad at those boys. They are far too cute for their own good. Marcos will be leaving on Thursday so tomorrow I will be taking my camera to get lots of photos to share with you all. I will miss that boy so much. Entertaining nine boys everyday is seriously draining work. By the end of my five-hour shift I just want to crash… and I usually do.

In keeping true to my word this weekend I did a whole lot of nothing. Friday night I went out with Jous and the other volunteers to a bar where there was a beauty pageant of some sort going on. One of Jous friend’s little sister was competing. As far as I could tell it was something along the lines of Miss Teen Guzmán. It was a bunch of high school students at any rate. There was a live band that started as drums only an evolved into a full-fledged banda party. We had a great time. Saturday morning, the other three volunteers (I guess I should mention that we have two new volunteers here from America Kristen and Tyler) went to Guadalajara for the weekend. So, I spent the day washing my clothes and trying to read my new book. That night Jous and I went to a bar called Pubb. There is definitely nothing pub-like about it but they had a delightful secret cocktail that I thoroughly enjoyed. Sunday evening I spent in the town centre taking part in the weekly cultural festival and ate my first Mexican hotdog: way better than Canadian hotdogs! So that was my exciting weekend. I’m looking forward to tomorrow… let’s hope my camera survives the day.

PS My camera survived. Best day ever taking photos with the boys today!