My parents have requested that I go into detail about this run. It was pretty entertaining. First off, the fields are used by the house to raise corn for their fresh tortillas. These corn fields are in various states of use. The only paths through the cornfields are a series of tire tracks which cut through the middle and break off to each side. These tire tracks also range from well worn to barely discernable. We started in the middle set of tracks leading out from the house and navigated our way past several very swampy parts that smelled pretty awful. Next, we branched off to the right at the edge of a recently harvested corn field which was by far the easiest part of the run. We were running on top of old corn shucks and passed about five skulls picked clean. They appeared to be goat. Our next turn took us towards the outside border and the tire tracks we were following began to disappear in earnest. The tracks were so overgrown that we were often guessing at where they went and were repeatedly being tripped up or hit by the surrounding vegetation. Wesleigh actually caught her foot on a vine that didn't give and therefore sent her straight to the ground, bruising her up pretty well. But we kept going. Our next obstacle was giant piles of crap and before we knew it we were clear of the corn fields and standing in a slightly more open area. With about three bulls. Oh! That's where the crap came from! Not wishing to push our luck too much, we quickly turned around and re-entered the relative safety of the cornfields to avoid spooking the bulls. On the way back we also became acquainted with a bush of very sharp thorns which succeeded in briefly stealing Wesleigh's headphones. Another pleasant surprise awaited us back at the field entrance where Wesleigh had left her sweatshirt: her keys were gone. We spent the next hour looking for them with no luck. (Thankfully, they were returned later in the day.)
What other exciting events happened that day, you ask? Well, I completely lost my second break of the day to Jorge, the English guru around here who wanted my help with the International Junta performance. It proved to be a pointless discussion which was frustrating, but I was frazzled the most by my time in a classroom full of about twenty seven-year-olds. Jorge wanted to practice the script for the junta with their teacher and I inadvertently agreed to let them do so which meant I was put in charge of her class for about 40 minutes. The kids had no idea who I was as I received no introduction and the teacher just left with no explanation after passing out a short activity. This short activity was supposed to keep them occupied the entire time. Before I knew it, I had about five little boys running around the school, a fight going on in another corner, a group pulling on me for attention...craziness. Finally, the teacher returned and I ran for my life (and the remaining thirty minutes of break). This wonderful class experience was followed up by my English class that afternoon where half of my class arrived 15 minutes behind the others who had already completed the important activity for the day so I was trying to get the new boys on track while keeping the older three under control...madness. The class finally degraded into a game of futbol which I enjoyed, but which also involved no English. Ni modo.
The capper to this wonderful Valentine's occurred when I finally returned to my room for the night. Utterly exhausted, I decided to take a nice, hot shower. Prior to this moment, our shower had routinely flooded the bathroom, but only enough to cover most of the bathroom floor and not actually spill out the door. Well, you can probably predict what happened next. I had sudsed up my hair and washed my face when the water made it to the door. I quickly tried to finish, but soon saw the attempt was pointless as water was pouring out the door and into our room. I stopped with my hair still full of soap and peeked out the door to survey the damage. A reasonably deep puddle now covered half of our floor space. Great. I put my towel on and start to sweep the water out the door. This was made especially difficult since I couldn't move our lockers and had to maneuver around and under them. It probably took an hour to get the worst of the water out the door. I took a break in the middle to finish my shower in the other girls' bathroom. Let's just say I was not a happy camper. Bed never felt so good.
The these three Virgin of Guadalupe pictures are all pictures I've been requested to duplicate. In addition, there's another Virgincita that's more popular, a rose picture, a child prayer, portraits of the girls, etc. ;-)
This all of course looks hilarious in retrospect, but it was definitely the most trying day I've had so far. The rest of the week was tame in comparison. Tuesday was a little difficult just because I had no break time with all our meetings and therefore could not catch up on sleep at all and, on Wednesday I was completely unable to accomplish anything because of similar circumstances. Thursday I was up early (4:20am early) for the novios sweep team again. I actually completely forgot about it, but thankfully Wesleigh remembered and woke me up by calling through the window. A lot of time with my girls this week was spent drawing. They've latched on to my supposed skills and request all kinds of things. The latest craze is drawings of the Virgin of Guadalupe of which they have several depictions in the room. The first request has exploded into one for each of the girls. I have never drawn so much in my life! My current project in a portrait which I'm finding frustrating. The girls celebrate any sort of art tendencies and love to watch me draw. They have no art class themselves and so have never really been encouraged to draw much less taught how. I'd like to encourage them in this, but I'm at a loss as to how to do it. It's been so long since I've taken any class myself!
So this was last week. Sorry for the delay in updates and the lack of pictures. The weekend post will be much more exciting! <3
