Mexico Day 29 - Month 1

‘Twas but a month ago whenst I left my humble abode in the most Northern of the two Carolinas for the Central American country of Mexico and what a spree it has been. I almost can’t believe it’s been a whole month already but the time has not always passed so swiftly. Some days it feels like a mere three months and I’ll be back to the states in a jiffy and others it feels like a whole quarter of a year or 90 whole days before I will ever see a Chick-Fil-A or Taco Bell.

Technically, we as B2B staff are supposed to delegate to group members different jobs to do and supervise what goes on and simply “fill in gaps” along the way. The groups come to work, we give the work, and we all go home happy. But for some reason the math doesn’t always add up for me. I constantly find myself jumping in and working because that’s not the way my brain works. My brain cannot, physically or mentally, just sit by and delegate. I am a DO-er. I am a part of Mexico and it, a part of me and if I was to just sit by and kind of just let the groups do all the work…well that kind of defeats the whole purpose of why I’m here in the first place.

Ironically, the times I seem most stressed and “quarter year-y” is in my tiempo libre. I know that it is Biblically sound that everyone should have a day of rest but somehow I feel strange on my days off. I basically spend all day walking around with my hands in my pockets when there is so much more I could be doing. I feel as though I should be going with the groups to the sites or hanging out with the kids at one of the homes but nooo, I have “rest” for a couple days to “regain my strength”. OMGz my life iz like soooooooooooooo hardddddd!

On the other hand though, that’s only one or two days a weekend and I feel amazing the rest of the week when I’m actually working.

When I’m on a work site I am in my element. My alter ego “Mission Trip Nate” emerges from his resting place and I am ready to do whatever, whenever to help whoever, however. An entity I have just recently gotten to know personally takes control and it’s full steam ahead from that point on. Watching the projects progress from group to group is great. And arriving to a casa hogar and having kids who know you by name run up and say hello is even better. But seeing a group of complete strangers, Mexican and American, Spanish and English, gather together for the sake of something much bigger than any individual is just…gnarly.

I can feel my Spanish getting better each and every day. I am actually relied on to translate from time to time for group members and staff that don’t speak either English or Spanish. I make it a point to learn new words every day and my vocabulary is growing almost as fast as my long, luscious locks of hair. Unfortunately, I have been hanging out with some staff, who shall remain nameless, that have been teaching me words that aren’t necessarily “bad” but that one should not say around mixed company so they haven’t all been necessarily useful. But on the bright side if I ever find myself in a heated moment in “da hood” where it is necessary to use some Mexico-specific slang I totes got dat covered. Bang-bang boom-boom. \m/

Last week I was at La Casa Hogar Bethany with David and as we were getting ready to leave with a group of Canadians from another ministry I said goodbye to a kid who I’d kind of been chilling with named Adan. I let him know that I wasn’t a part of the group that was leaving for good so I’d probably see him again soon within the next couple weeks and he told me this…“Si no puedes regresar es bueno porque estamos hermanos en Cristo y si no regresas temprano vamos a estar juntos en Cielo por eternidad.” Now I am not completely fluent in Spanish nor can I remember his exact words perfectly but in a nutshell he basically said this, “Even if you can’t come back it’s fine because we’re brothers in Christ and even if you don’t come back anytime soon we’ll still be together for eternity in Heaven.” He literally said eternidad. And here I thought I was the one trying to help people…

Right now we have a group of 55 people from a local, Cincinnati, private, middle school (that’s four adjectives in a row) on the campus and chaos would be putting it lightly. They brought an ungodly amount of donations including five bins of just soccer cleats plus food and donations for staff on campus which was pretty cool. I may or may not have taken a twelve pack of Gushers and eaten them within the first fours days I got them. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t…we’ll never know.

150 bags of basic kitchen cooking supplies

Every time I see them talking to one another my brain just goes, “Oh, middle school…Oh, middle school.” With their electric orange and neon green sunglasses compiled with Etnies shoes that are probably at least 387 sizes too big, I just thank the Lord I’m graduated. I dare not speak with them about musical taste for fear of being asked if I like AILD, ADTR, or TDWP and if you didn’t understand that joke, congratulations because you’re one of the lucky ones…

Although the majority is not too fond of actually trabajando, on a MISSION TRIP, it’s nice to have a virtually unlimited work force at our finger tips. Sort of. There is, however, the occasional dude or dudette that will go far above and far beyond the call of duty and work all day, sometimes up to six hours in a row and I just think that’s super chido. I saw a kid at the end of the work day yesterday that was drenched in sweat and sun-burnt like no body’s business and I knew exactly why. I hadn’t seen the kid but a few times all day. But I had been inside all day. I had been helping serve food to the vast crowds of people at Río 3 and passing out donations from the basement and he had been outside playing soccer with the kids all day.

These donations...

...for this crowd

The only times I saw him during the day was whenever he came inside to fill up his water bottle and every time I saw him he had the biggest smile on his face. Later that night when we got back to the campus and got ready for dinner, I saw him again and he looked completely exhausted. Well done sir. Well done.

-N8

Mexico Day 25 - Errands

Two days ago Cheque and I were given the task to buy enough food to feed 60 people three-square meals  a day, everyday, for seven days....that's around 1260 meals. And here I thought that having four carritos was a lot to have yeah-no.....

The first trip took about six carts total. Four from Sam's Club and two from Walmart. We realized we couldn't fit anything else so at that point in time we decided to take what we had back to the B2B campus and unload. With the help of some of the staff kids it actually helped a lot and we unloaded it pretty quickly so we went back out to get a "few" more carts.

Trip numero dos was more. Much more. Six carts from Sam's Club and three carts of just bread from H.E.B. bringing our total cart count up to around 15. Originally we were going to go for more at H.E.B. but we once again we realized we lacked the physical space to transport the additional mix of 170 bananas, 230 apples, and 8 watermelons plus about 10 kilos of ham. Yesterday, Cheque went back to get the rest of the bread we couldn't fit, the ham, and other assorted frutas y verduras. An additional two carts I would guess if not more. Our total to cart count to somewhere around seventeen and that doesn't even count the stuff we already had in the pantry. Had I not been able to work my schedule around so that I could go with Cheque he would have had to do it all by himself and THAT is what makes him super chido.

Yesterday I went to Bethany with David to escort a Canadian mission trip team which was quite the experience. Considering that I had to translate their Canadian-accented English to the Midwestern-accented English that David is used to hearing in order for him to be able to translate to Spanish.....it was a pretty fun day. I was the only American in a crowd of white people was an almost surreal experience. I'm used to just being seen as un de los Americanos but for the first time ever during my stay here in Mexico I was known as el Americano. And that was pretty cool.

-N8

Mexico Day 22 - Cute Kids.....

So it's been twenty-two days in Mexico and I haven't posted a single picture of the cute kids here so I figured this was necessary. Today we took a trip to La Casa Hogar del Norte for work projects and after we finished everything on the work site we had some down time to chill with some of the kids which was super chido and this is what happened....

I thought it was just the cutest thing that he was actually sitting IN the chalk basket playing with the chalk.  Obviously he could sense the artistic aroma permeating from my natural aura so he offered me a piece of chalk.

For some reason the Lion King theme song plays in my head every time I look at this picture of Angel. He fervently climbed time and time again to the top of the slide only to sit on his bottom for quite awhile observing everything around him and eventually sliding down on his belly. Why don't they make slides like this for adults?

Daniel took off his normal glasses and traded them in for some safety glasses to help us out with the work that we had already finished for the day. Unfortunately he has terrible vision and probably would be more of a help with his normal glasses on rather than off. He is probably one of a select few kids from all the homes that are so cute that even if they were to punch me square in the face I'd probably just say, "Hey don't do th....awwww look at his missing teeth." We had a reading time a little bit before play time and I had the privilege of seeing this dude in action and lucky guess: he's just like me. More pictures = more fun.

Mexico Day 18 - Sickness or Solution?

What a week, what a week. The entire week we've had a medical team of doctors, nurses, medical students, etc. down prescribing medications, doing work projects, and doing general check ups for almost all of the casa hogares and some of the people in the extremely impoverished areas we serve. I saw everything from an unidentifiable skin diseases to extremely bad arthritis in the hands and feet and I am mad proud of these dudes for sticking it out because I could not be a doctor by any stretch of the imagination.

The week started off with a trip to Río Tres which is one of the extremely impoverished areas that we have come to serve over the years. I’ve been to the Río numerous times before so unfortunately it came as no shock to me when I saw people’s houses made out of nothing more than corrugated siding and cinderblocks. But despite all the terrible things that I’m sure occur every single night there, there is a certain beauty that, I believe, only a Christ-Follower can see.

In America we have very little to trust the Lord with. We have family, friends, money, houses, cars, and the list goes on and on, but here that is not the case. When you walk inside someone’s one bed-kitch-living room, no bathroom house you almost feel like a terrible person for everything bad you’ve ever done ever and everything bad you will ever do in the future. Here I am wondering when I can get new gear for my longboard or a new pair of shoes to rock and it makes me think: “Do I really know what it’s like to depend on God?” People in the Río depend on the Lord for EVERYTHING. They know not where their next meal may come from or when the next flood will come and literally wipe away their entire house. And so they pray. Pray to God, lifting up all they have in reverence for him because they know that they literally cannot do it alone. And that’ll preach.

I was thoroughly impressed with how smooth things went and how prepared we were for the crowds of people. The entire process from intake to vitals to actually seeing a doctor to getting medication at the pharmacy was efficient beyond anything I could have ever dreamed of doing. We also had volunteer students from a tech university in Monterrey come and help as well which made things even smoother. My job for the day was just to be a floater and help out wherever I was needed which included anything from translating dosage amounts to checking people in to attempting to keep the wailing children from scaring the other kids.

The rest of the week was very similar just in different places at different times. Finally on Monday…THE SUN CAME OUT! Oh, what a glorious day that was and it’s still out right now so I am mad st0ked! I have had quite a lot of local cuisine in the past week and it had all been delicious. Tacos, burritos, tamales, the lot. I feel as though I am some what starting to fit into the staff and starting to “get” people. I recognize the people I get along with great and people who I do not. Having groups is also fun because I use my leadership skills in a very real way. I delegate group members to do different things and they answer back to me if there’s a problem or any question.

My favorite part of the entire past week or so has been the fact that some of the kids are starting to recognize me at some of the homes and that has been my goal. I feel like a part of the crew and that  I am helping the long term rather than the short. According to one of the American staff who has a masters in psychology, contrary to popular belief, it is actually destructive to a child’s mental state of mind when they meet hundreds and hundreds of new people ever year all there for the same reason…”because I’m an orphan”. It is a vicious cycle of strangers that all want to be a child’s new best friend, who all have what they think is a “personal connection” with the kids, and who all seem to be different when they go home. I feel as though it is not as simple as that. Coming down on a mission trip for one week and thinking you have a very personal connection with a kid? How many people have you spent about five total hours with throughout a week and had a real connection with?

In my experience it is the long-term staff here that is really doing the long-lasting good that we seek to achieve. They are the ones who leave their homes, friends, families, countries, jobs to serve something bigger than themselves. They are the ones that the kids run to when something bad has happened and they need a shoulder to cry on or voice to pray with. They are the ones spending the nights at the children’s homes and just being with the kids. Waking up at 6:00am in the morning to go get the kids up and ready for school, preparing them for school, bringing them to and from school, feeding them lunch, helping them with their homework, feeding them dinner, bathing them, and eventually putting them to bed at night around 9:00pm (which is a real schedule that some of the staff do every week just to help out the encargadas). Don’t get me wrong, groups are a great and a very necessary part of the entire missionary field but consider this world: Next time you go on a mission trip ready to pour, pour, pour into kids who have had everything taken away from them, kids who, in our minds, spend all their time crying and in turmoil because they can’t enjoy the same excesses and privileges that we do, be prepared, because ten times out of ten they are the ones who end up helping you because you’d be surprised at how strong some of these niños can be.

-N8

Mexico Day 11 - When in Mexico...

The past few days have not been exactly ideal. They have consisted of rain, cold, and more rain. Yesterday was the first day of sunny-ish weather and by nightfall it was raining…again. Now I’m not one to complain here but some sol y calor would be nice every once-in-awhile.

Thursday I went out to get groceries with Cheque again, or so we thought. Originally we were just going for groceries but when we opened the back of the big, white, sketch-ball van to make room for the food we were met by some…obstacles.

About 20 obstacles

Every bag was FULL of sheets and blankets left over from the retreat last weekend and they all needed to be washed. We dropped off all the bags of sheets and blankets at a laundry mat to a couple who may or may not have stared straight into my soul with the look I got when we first walked in.

After dropping off the mountain of clothes we headed to La Cluba de Samuel (Sam’s Club) once again to get some groceries and only filled three carritos this time instead of four. ¡Que chido! On the way home we grabbed some food at the mall and a POP at a 7 Eleven where for some reason they couldn’t break a Mexican $500 bill which is about equal to 41 American dollars and some change. The experience at the mall, however, was eyeopen-lifechange-breathtake-awesomeness all around. Cheque and I both ordered food from different places and at his request we ended up sharing our food with each other which I thought was probably the coolest thing in Mexico thus far. I got to try his Mexi-Chinese food (from a Chinese lady who spoke Spanish which kind of threw me off) and he got try some of my tamales (my new favorite Mexican food del mundo).

He told me that when he was a kid, he and some of his family used to all order different food at restaurants and everybody would share each other’s food and end up getting to taste tons of different dishes all in one dinner rather than one. Now THIS is my kind of country. Much like I have previously stated: there is a certain zeal and fervor to the culture here that you just have to experience first hand. There is no other way.

Oftentimes when one thinks of vacation or honeymoon the mind conjures up Photoshopped images of beaches and little umbrellas in your drinks. A place of “relaxation”? I say thee nay. I may be on this boat all alone but my ideal exotic vacation would be to travel to a place where people actually live. A place of full immersion where you walk away with knowledge of another culture, because who really wants to look back on a vacation and say, “Do you remember when we sat on the beach and kinda just chilled for like all day and then the next day we chilled again? Yeah, that was…fun?” Not me.

As I sit here writing my thoughts out, I feel as though I do all of Mexico a grave disservice every time I try to explain how it is here. Words cannot explain the way I feel when I sit down at lunch time at one of the children’s homes with 20-30 kids who are much younger than me, don’t speak a word of my language, and have no background near mine, and we…just…eat. As we pass around the community bowl of tortillas I watch and observe the most efficient technique to stuff a taco that would make even the most experienced Chipotle employee green with envy (guacamole’s extra). As I sip on a sketchy red drink that I’ve been served and wonder, “Will this give me diarrhea?” I shift my focus to the freshly cooked chicken-noodle soup + “secret ingredients” sitting in front of me that also makes me speculate, “Will THIS give me diarrhea?” So far no diarrhea… \m/

Yesterday, a local staff member se llama David (Dah-veed) and I drove about an hour to La Casa Hogar Bethany which was ballin’ straight up. I knew going into this experience that we were going to do some “man h-work” (as David put it) but I had no idea what was in store, but I think this speaks for itself...

-N8

Yeah, there used to be a wall there...

Mexico Day 7 - Freezing In Mexico

¡Hace frío!

The past few days have been quite chilly here, probably around the lower 50s or upper 40s. Unfortunately I did not envision Mexico being so cold DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY so I did not pack much cold winter wear other than a couple hoodies and a windbreaker so I am currently suffering for my ignorance. Today has been the first warm-ish day in the since about Friday and I am thanking the Lord for it. Here we have air-conditioning, fans, etc. for hot weather but when it gets cold you feel it…everywhere. Because of the lack of heaters when it is 40°F outside it is 40 inside as well. Up until about yesterday I had no idea how to close two vents that sit 12 feet up a wall in my room so my room has had the past four days to absorb and retain all the cold air it possibly can. Because of that I am currently sitting in my room, covered in three blankets with all the windows, doors, and vents open trying to air out the cold to make room for the warm.

In reality, I certainly prefer the cold to the warm no questions asked. Hot weather is an inescapable disease and one can only take off so much before getting arrested for some pretty sketchy stuff. On the other hand, cold weather is easily escaped by putting more and more clothes on and bundling up more and more. Simple. But in the rare event that you are unprepared for the arctic tundra that is about to ensue, you feel every degree.

Yesterday I went to one of the homes to do some reconnaissance for future piping we plan to put in and boy was it intense. La Casa Hogar Douglas is the largest children’s homes Back2Back serves with around 70 children living in a very confined space with limited food, water, and shelter to go around. As we walked the grounds, the B2B Captain of Douglas told me the story of some of the kids and how the home got to be the way it is now and to put it lightly, they’re luckily Back2Back found them. My heart sank when I heard that one of the kids I had gotten to know in the past had left the home in search of work with only a 3rd grade education. He is currently around 17 years old and has three younger siblings still at the home. I had been to Douglas before on mission trips but it is only in the off-season when you really see the pictura grande. It is truly a blessing that God has brought Back2Back to this area because sometimes there are God-sized problems that need to be fixed.

Once we got back I had some craving for art so I just went outside and just kind of drew what I saw. Unfortunately, however, later that night when I brought my sketchbook to the grocery store I left it in the cart on accident so the only remnant I have of my artistic ventures is this picture:

"The View"

Later that day I got my longboard out and shredded some gnar with some staff kids and to my surprise they are pretty radical \m/ The family below me has a younger son no more than 8 years old who hopped right on and was doing some pretty sick dancing moves considering that the board is about as tall as he is and probably weighs as much too. In my opinion skating has got to be among the top 5 universal languages in the world by which people communicate right behind fútbol, art, and music.

Going to Douglas today made me excited for the future because I know that God is doing and will do many more great things here in the future. We’ve already built a church, new office spaces, and a library there and I’m sure there is much more to come.

-N8

The church is literally a shining building on a hill

Super Bowl party projecting from an old TV hooked up to rabbit ears

Staff kids reppin' the 5-1-3
Josh, Luke, and Mark

Mexico Day 5 - Weekend Retreat

Just got back from a 1twentyone retreat up to the mountains above Monterrey with about 80 kids from some of the local children’s homes we work with. It was my real first taste of what it’s like to be an “intern” and have legit responsibilities.

The day before we left, a man who lives below me, Cheque and I went out to buy groceries por el retiro. We ended up getting four grocery carts full of chips, ham, bread, etc. Cheque normally runs errands alone and told me that the most he’s ever bought for a group was SEVEN carts full and when he unloaded them back at the campus he went back out to get another three from Walmart.

The next day we got up at 4:15am and left by about 6ish. All the kids stayed overnight at the Back2Back campus and surprisingly they were up before I was. Granted, some of them never went to bed but it’s all good in the hood. We drove a little over an hour into the mountains with a caravan of about six or seven: one red suburban, two white vans, two buses, and a couple vehicles from the homes.

Driving up the one road that led up the mountain was a terrifying experience because every which-way you turn there’s a crucifix in honor of someone who had died there or driven off the side of the cliff. Another hard part about the journey was the fact that I didn’t think that the buses could make some of the 180+ degree turns heading up the mountain. But what I forgot is that this is Mexico…Even if something has no possible way of working in any way, shape, or form, in Mexico lo trabaja.

The proceeding events were average but later in the night we had a worship session and I knew that it was going to be amazing. A couple years ago I had my first encounter with a “Mexican worship service” and let me tell you, these people can party! In Mexico there is no, “What will the people around me say if I lift my hands up or dance around?” No. Kids were dancing, lifting up hands, running back and forth and it was simply amazing. I joined in on a couple songs that I knew the words to or songs that only had one or two verses and it was definitely the experience of a lifetime. If you want to hear what “Mexican worship” is all about go to YouTube and type in “Te Doy Gloria” and you’ll find out.

The Super Bowl is tonight and all the staff kids are getting mad stoked. Patriots vs. Giants, I could really care less who wins, I’d rather just chill with people. As I speak I can hear kids downstairs screaming and playing football in the front lawn and I’m about to go join them.

Something unique that I’ve gotten out of this who weekend is that I realized the real camaraderie that exists here. Mexican or American, everybody this weekend did what needed to be done, when it needed to be done and I’m just grateful to be a part of it.

-N8

Mexico Day 2 - Simple Life

The way of life in Mexico is so amazing I can barely explain it. The culture is something that I’ve loved since the first day I came back in 2009. We were here only a week and I had already known that I wanted to come back very soon. There is a sense of familia and amistad that words can’t explain.

This is what I am greeted by every morning walking out my front door

In America one walks down the street on the phone or looking through their purse preoccupied with whatever they are doing at that specific point in time. Here people still have phones and still have purses but in a different sense. The phone is something to be used as a sense of communication, not entertainment or something to solve boredom. I haven’t seen a single iPhone or any smart phone for that matter besides those of the Americans visiting for the week in which case I see iPhones, iPads, Droids, etc.

The simplicity of my life right now is quite refreshing. The only Internet access I have is if I walk 100 meters across the front lawn into the cafetería and sit right outside the room where the router is located and I still get 2 bars at best.

Earlier today I went to post my thoughts from yesterday and realized that my entire blog was in Spanish and I thought that was simply spectacular. Granted, with Google Chrome’s capabilities I could easily translate the entire page into any spoken language on the face of the Earth but I don’t think I will. I’ve been speaking Spanish with every single person I encounter whether the speak English or Spanish so I figure why not?

In order to have clean water for brushing teeth, drinking, etc. I have a water cooler in my bathroom that I draw from with a yellow plastic cup that was here waiting for me when I moved in. My shower takes approximately 2.5 hours to get heated up which keeps my showers to about 5 minutes long.

I technically have two rooms to live in but one of them is full of mattresses....

 I no longer carry my iPod, wallet, and phone with me everywhere I go. I carry 1 thing in my pocket which is my single key to get into my room. A sense of humility is achieved when I realize that if were I to walk around with iPod in ear and cell phone in hand I would stick out like a sore thumb more so than I already do as the single most pale persona in the entire country right now.

I went out on an unexpected 6 hour journey today. One of the local staff asked me if I wanted to help a couple guys named Saul (Sah-ule) and Miguel move some wood. “Of course!” I said not knowing the adventures that lay ahead. As I entered the car I realized that neither of them really spoke much English and I knew this was going to be interesting. We drove about 10-15 minutes to one of the children’s homes to pick up what I thought would be a couple reams of wood maybe some 2x4’s. No. As we arrived we were met by a not a stack, not a pile, but a MOUNTAIN of wood. We picked up the wood and drove another 15 minutes to drop it off where we were met by a group of Mexicans that unloaded in minutes what took us quite a while to load.

“Whew! Glad that’s over with” I thought as we got back in the van. I was wrong. We stopped for lunch at a hole in the wall on the side of the street that had no name associated with it, just a big sign that read “TAMALES” in big red letters. Day 1 in Mexico and I’ve already had probably the best tamales I’ve had in my entire life. I have absolutely no clue what sketchy business could have been in them but I ate about 8 of them so we’ll find out soon enough. We got back in the car and headed BACK to children’s home for even MORE wood which literally took hours to load then finally drove back to the Back2Back campus.

As far as first days in foreign places go this takes the pastel. Last night I had that, “Holy crap, I’m going to be here for 3 months!” moment and I was over-thinking everything. What will it be like not seeing family? Not seeing friends? No “Top Gear” or “NY Ink” to watch? But today has put me at ease. As I prepare to make the walk to the office where the Internet signal resides there is one image in my mind which could explain this entire day. On the way home from getting wood trip #2 me and Miguel fell asleep in the truck while Saul was driving. As I drifted into the dreamworld and bobbed my head like an apple I was awoken by a loud scream, horn and jarring of the brakes. I wake up like out of an exorcism and am met by the hysterical laughter of Saul as he turns back onto the road completely fine.

Le amo México, con todo mi corazón.

-N8

Mexico Day 1 - Ode to the Airport

Oh the joys of flying. ‘Twas but a few hours ago whenst I left Raleigh, North Carolina to embark on the adventura of a lifetime. The first leg of the trip, Raleigh to Atlanta was a complete blur considering I slept almost the entire plane trip. When I was awoken out of my temporary comatosed sleep was I met by a nice man seated next to me, visiting Atlanta on business. He was reading Barack Obama’s new book The Audacity of Hope on his new iPad 2. Covertly I tried to read with him using my peripheral vision but was sadly denied by the fact that my reading abilities are unable to surpass those of a 3rd-grader and he read like a freaking b0$$.

Sleeping like a baby

This is my first time flying alone and on this “mission from God” I was met by some unexpected obstacles:

Apparently free Wi-Fi in airports is completely unheard of. I mean, how dare you receive free internet availability when you’ve already paid upwards of $738 million dollars for a aero plane ticket?! When I come to power all air travel will be free and the only time you will pay anything is if you find yourself in need of refreshment mid-flight in which case a cup of POP (not soda) and generic branded pretzels would cost the equivalent of a modern-day airline ticket.

As I sit here typing this post out in a Microsoft Word document as a means of protest against charged Wi-Fi, I listen to the man across from me listening to some VERY loud Led Zeppelin. He dawns a New York Yankees hat and as I speak he is beginning to lay down exhibiting what some specialists refer to as “the airport/bookstore lay” in which the individual involved just kind of lays down in the middle of a public place just ‘cause. In the background I hear CNN on the television playing a press conference of President Obama talking about houses and issues and such.

In retrospect I quite enjoyed my layover in Atlanta, Georgia. Had my flight not been delayed I would never have been able to take in all my surroundings so precisely. Time and time again in life we find ourselves rushed around from school to work to home to family that we never take nor make the time to walk around and admire God’s beautiful creations around us. Although being late anywhere is kind of a bummer, it has allowed me the rare opportunity to take a step back and see things from the outside looking in and for that I thank you, Atlanta Airport (even if your Wi-Fi is a total scam).

-N8