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...