Lots of Words (4/11-17)

Tuesday was another haircut day which meant the porch of the main house was crowded with Pequenos and students from a local beauty school who were volunteering their time to help keep the kids' hair in line.  It's always entertaining to see what this actually means.  For the boys it's a rather safe venture; they usually leave the chair with their head shaved.  The girls on the other hand come out with all kinds of interesting styles which make me think I will not be getting a hair cut in Mexico anytime soon.  ;-)

Wednesday was difficult.  For some reason it was a bad day in that I was really missing home.  Those kinds of days happen every once in a while to all of us volunteers here.  It's kind of like walking a thin line: on one side, especially when with the kids, we're ridiculously happy and grateful to be here as a part of these kids' lives; on the other, we're teetering on the edge of deep sadness and loneliness for home, family, and friends.  Thankfully, we're kept busy enough and surrounded by our kids enough that the second part usually doesn't catch up with us too often and when it does it's only for a brief moment before a smile or hug brings us back.  Wednesday was just one of those days when the sadness caught up with me and I had a lot of trouble shaking it.  Eventually I did with the help of Taylor Swift. :-D For some reason, her music reminds me of home in a good way, but also helps keep me happy with my reality here.  It was also my Dad's birthday (getting up there at 64!) and so I was able to chat with him on Skype that night while he opened his present.

It was a busy night.  Wednesday also marked the first official convivencia between the directors of the house and the new volunteer group.  It used to be a tradition to have monthly dinners between the directors and the volunteers to help improve relations and communication, but these meetings were suspended with the last group.  We finally made a decision to revive the convivencias and Wednesday was our first attempt.  The volunteers were solely responsible for the location and food, making us a little nervous about setting the standard, but everything turned out great.  I even received a compliment for how clean the sala looked!  The food was delicious and a nice departure from the norm of the house (we actually ate chicken which almost never happens here anymore) and I think everyone had a good time.  It started off a little awkward at first, but Marinay was great at helping break the ice and we played a few games after we finished eating.  All in all a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Thursday night was the big party for kids with February and March birthdays and the volunteers were required to help out with.  A special meal was prepared with the extra treats of soda, ice cream, and cake.  There was also a present for each birthday put together from donations given to the house.  Music, food, and presents, what more could you ask for? 

Thursday night was our weekly single ladies' night.  Wesleigh, Monika and I chose Remember Me as our entertainment.  We've really come to look forward to this night.  It's such an easy, fun way to unwind at the end of the week and before any of us leave for descanso the next day.  Especially since I don't have descanso with them and Monika has such a different schedule from us, having such a specific time together to catch up and relax is important.

Thankfully, this weekend was my descanso which I chose to spend in Miacatlan for the first time in a long time.  I had a lot of things to do, none of which required Cuernavaca, and I've become very conscientious of money lately so it just seemed like the natural choice.  The weekend therefore has been very simple and relaxing.  I did spend Friday morning working with Grupo D which was new.  I think this might become a regular thing each week during school.  Grupo D consists of students who need extra attention.  This might be because of attention difficulties, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, or a simple lack of education before coming to the house.  Regardless, Grupo D is composed of 8 boys and 1 girl of varying ages.  Monika works with them all week in addition to her section responsibilities, but Friday morning she is left alone with the kids and required to provide an activity to fill an hour and a half.  Due to recent shifts in staff, she needs help and so Wesleigh and I on Friday decided to try it out.  I think it's going to work.  It will be challenging, but worth it.

The rest of the weekend I spent largely on the computer: watching movies, organizing photos, updating my blog (:-D).  Eating, exercising, and sleeping were my other main activities.  Thrilling, I know.  Definitely a fun descanso for me!  And I was able to hang out with the working volunteers.  Sunday was a little different.  First a snake tried to crawl into our sala twice freaking me out completely as I HATE snakes.  Apparently this snake, Mr. Stripes as I've come to call him, lives in a hole in our patio.  Hopefully he either won't try again or we'll figure out some way to kill him.  Unfortunately, our sala door has enough space under it for this particular snake to crawl under.  I now live in fear of discovering Mr. Stripes somewhere within our sala.  Not a pleasant thought.  The other big event of the day (which might possibly be the cause of the first) was a huge thunderstorm which actually included a heavy downpour.  We've had our spritzing, our windstorms, and our lightening, but no actual hard rain.  It had been a really hot day and the rain cooled everything down plus as an extra bonus brought a fresh scent with it.  A surprising conclusion to the weekend.  And it leaves us all with the question, has the rainy season come early to relieve us from such oppressive heat, or was it just a brief relief before the hot season really starts?

Wesleigh celebrating our first real rainstorm in Miacatlan.  She's a little red from a day spent at the lake with the kids without sunscreen.

Finally, My New Camera! (4/4-10)

The week of April 4th through the 10th was different because one of the encargadas in my section was on vacation so only two of us were officially on duty. This was supplemented by Blanche, one of the directors, who every other night helped out on the late shift with dinner and putting the girls to bed so Ochoa could take the night off.  I had my usual schedule.  Teresa was also gone and her absence was felt.

Sweep team made the week a little more complicated as well.  All the sweep teams rotate between five different locations of the house and that week we had patio.  Patio includes the large patio plus the road to volunteers, the road from the entrance, and the road along the front gate, aka a huge area.  Castigados or kids being punished usually help diminish the actual area a sweep team has to cover by sweeping as punishment for whatever sins they've committed.  That week I don't know if the children were all being saints or just being allocated to different areas because we routinely spent at least 45 minutes if not over an hour sweeping every day.  This is highly unusual.  Normally sweep team is only supposed to be about 30 minutes so over an hour is a big deal.  I was grateful when the sweep team portion of the week ended.

Friday was a little different in that we did chores instead of during the usual Saturday morning break.  The room was given a very thorough cleaning.  I also went a little nuts with photos.  It was the first day I officially used my new camera.  I finally was able to buy a memory card my previous descanso and actually started to use it on Friday.  The girls were pretty excited too I think.  It was a pretty quiet night.  I helped one of my girls make a Build-a-Bear she had gotten for her birthday which was fun.  I've always enjoyed crafts and sewing and it was nice to get to use that experience with my girls.

Scrubbing the room in the traditional NPH fashion: dump water on it.

Us sitting outside the room waiting for the floor to be finished.

A line of my section walking back from dinner.  How sweet!

Me helping one of my girls with her new Build-a-Bear.  What a great gift!  I didn't even know they had portable Build-a-Bears now!  Anything creative like this is great for the girls and gives them a fun activity to do beyond the norm here.

Saturday was an extra special day because our section along with Grandes B girls and Medianos were chosen to attend an event for kids at a technical college outside of Cuernavaca.  Unfortunately this meant being up well before everyone else, but I was excited to be with my girls in an environment outside of the house.  Almost everyone fell asleep on the bus ride over.  The day (or I should say morning) itself consisted of a series of different stations all with activities geared towards environmental awareness with games and prizes for the kids.  Apparently this is an annual thing in celebration of Dia de los Ninos (Children's Day), a huge holiday in Mexico held at the end of the month.  Throughout April, all different kinds of groups either come to the home or host groups outside to celebrate the day and pamper the kids.  It was a little boring for me as I did not directly participate in the activities, but I still had fun and I know the girls loved the prizes.

Two of my girls sleeping on the bus.  It was a pretty early day after a relatively late weekend night.

Our first station of the day concluded with a rousing game of Pata, Pata, Ganso (Duck, Duck, Goose).

Another station sponsored by a Mexican version of Chuck E. Cheese's.  It was so cute because all the furniture was for kids clearly much younger than my girls, but they didn't let that stop them!

One of the Mediano boys, with his prizes from the day.

Our group of the day: my section and half of Medianos.  They look so together in their NPH golf shirts and jeans!

We got back to the house in time to enjoy a bit of a carnival a visiting group had put together for us as well as lunch.  The rest of the afternoon was a bit of blur; we were all so tired that it was a lot of lazing around and periodic napping.

Sunday was similarly pretty chill.  It started with the usual chores and lice checking.  I had my first real lice-checking experience.  I had only been going through the motions before without much benefit to the girls, but with the assistance of Elvira I finally learned how to recognize the lice.  This translated into a killer back and a lot of time spent sitting outside the section as I did a decent job cleaning out a couple girls with pretty bad infestations.  I think I prefer ignorance. :-D

That afternoon, the house had a contest among all the sections in which the kids had to make something out of recycled materials.  My girls gave up before the contest even began.  I think they were still feeling the lack of sleep from the day before.  The contest itself was pretty entertaining.  Ignacio and Jeremy, back from descanso early, were the judges and went around ranking the different results.  Both were hounded by the kids attempting to bribe themselves into first place.  The winners: Chicas for their train of milk cartons and Grandes B boys for their version of the White House/Capitol Building (yes, of the USA).

Lunch out by the pool.  This is a pretty normal weekend treat.

One of the entries in the recycling contest.  I thought this one was pretty cool.

The Grandes B boys' Capitol/White House which won second place.  It even came with its own mini Obama who you can just barely see in the dome on top.  The boys themselves were covered in white paint.

The above photo is of me, Ignacio, and one of the boys from Medianos.  We had dinner outside as well mainly due to the fact that the water shut off sometime that afternoon and remained off until well into the morning of the next day.  The kids were all dying of thirst and everyone felt nasty.  Dinner was mainly spent chugging as much milk as they could find which helped with the thirst part a little bit.  My girls spent the half hour before bed lugging buckets of water from the pool to use to get ready in the morning (whether for personal hygiene or cleaning the room I'm not sure).  Thankfully the volunteers' kitchen has a garrafon for our use, but it also made me feel pretty guilty that we had water while most of the house went thirsty.  A tough night for everyone and we were all very grateful when the water started running again the next morning.

Sticks and Six Flags (3/28-4/3)

Phase 2 of bathroom recovery commenced the following week.  Slowly but surely our beautiful tree was cut branch by branch until our patio was filled with tree debris.  It was a lot of fun to walk through especially at night when the branches were full of all kind of animals, namely cats.  The tree was not whittled down to a complete stump until I actually got back from descanso on Sunday at which point we finally had a throne worthy of our home.  (See photos below.)

Parent week also continued with the arrival of Dan's parents on Monday.  They were in and out a little more than Wesleigh's.  Since Wesleigh and I have such similar schedules I was able to visit with her parents quite a bit.  It was fun to have her parents around and get to know Wesleigh's back story a little more (much to her chagrin :-D).  They left on Wednesday.  Dan's parents stayed a little later and had a little baggage trouble.  I'm not actually sure how it was resolved, but their baggage was lost en route to Mexico and I don't think it was recovered until the end of their trip.  They therefore had to wear the exact same outfits every day.  They also were very nice and quite obviously Dan's parents in a very good way.

Our patio.  And what's left of our tree.

Opposite angle.  My window is in the background.

Descanso was fun.  Friday was a very chill night spent hanging out in the Cuernavaca volunteers' apartment where I met Whitney's brother Matt who funnily enough is the same age as my brother Matt.  Crazy world.  We decided to head to Mexico City Six Flags the next day.  Saturday was therefore a relatively early morning for a descanso.  We caught a bus from the Pullman station which gave us a good rate for both our bus tickets and our park entry.  Six Flags was a lot of fun.  It was another mini-USA minus all the Spanish.  Matt very kindly upgraded all our tickets so we could skip the long lines.

Me and Whitney in the main entry road through the park.

Us (Matt, Whitney, and I) after a raft ride on my recommendation.  Unfortunately it was one of those raft rides that soaked everyone and it was the cloudiest day of my current Mexico experience.  Repercussion: it took FOREVER to dry.  And the group wasn't very happy with me.  My recommendations were not permitted the rest of the day.

Medusa, one of the big roller coasters of the park.  The park itself was located pretty centrally to the city and on all the big coasters we had great views of the city.  The borders were not visible of course, but Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world.

The Bat-mobile sitting outside the Batman coaster.  Pretty cool.

The Dolphin Discovery show was pretty neat and educational (at least the facts I could understand).  It was kind of funny because all the signs around the park were in English (copyright reasons), but all the instructions/talking was in Spanish.  An interesting contrast.

Sunday was very low key.  I went by Starbucks for a little more homesickness therapy and headed back to Miacatlan relatively early to Skype.  And that was it!  A lot of sleeping, a lot of roller coasters, and a lot of fun.  Good descanso, but sad about the tree. 

Monica and Wesleigh trying out the throne and showing off the results of the afternoon activities.  Looks like a pretty good fit.

Dan, also showing how good we make that stump look.  Or how good the stump makes us look?  Uh oh.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Welcome Spring and Parents! (3/25-27)

On Friday, the section played soccer after cena.  I took a ball to the face from Ochoa, my fellow encargada, but besides being numb in that region for a little while, no damage was done.  That night the whole house came together in the patio for a spring fashion show.  Each section sent a few representatives to walk a catwalk formed by tables from the comedor and to dance a bit in front of strobe lights while dressed in spring themed costumes.  The two best sections were: medianos where all four boys wore animal costumes and had a perfectly choreographed routine that lasted the duration of their song; and terceros hombres where a couple came out with one guy dressed to the nines in a snazzy suit and the other also decked out with a huge, pink quinceanera dress (think prom) complete with heels and wig.  All in all, a fun night.

Photo courtesy of Andrew and his Grandes B boys.  An example of the type of costumes featured.  There was a huge range.  I was still camera-less and so unable to take photos of my own.

Saturday, my section roamed the house looking for fruit.  We attacked a lot of trees.  First, we challenged some mango trees in a grove we accessed by climbing through a few fences (clumsy me had the cuts to prove it), a few of my girls climbed some more trees for an odd looking fruit that I don't know the name of, and quite a few more girls used a shed in order to access chiquitos (at least that's what they called them) also found in ginormous trees.  This was a highly entertaining enterprise.  The girls used any and everything to throw into the trees to knock fruit free and most of the fruit was far from ripe.  They don't care.  The mangos especially are considered a real treat no matter what the state of ripeness.  The shed was a special obstacle and I ended up lifting several girls down off the roof as downward was apparently much harder than climbing up.

That afternoon, Mexico was playing Paraguay in soccer so the afternoon activity was watching the game on a big screen television set up outside the library.  We cleaned the comedor after cena that night, did a little swimming, and the day was over.  Sunday began with the usual aseos (aka, lice killing).  We were suppose to go into town again for mass, but thankfully for some reason mass wasn't being held in the pueblo, so instead we had a literal five minute prayer service in the chapel.  I think we said an Our Father, Glory Be, Hail Mary, and left.  Fastest prayer service of my life. :-D

The afternoon was filled with water activities (thank goodness, it's so hot here all the time now and we haven't even hit the hottest month of the year).  This degenerated to soaking the small soccer field in front of the girls' dormitory and the kids holding a massive mud fight.  The other major event of the day was the arrival of Wesleigh's parents.  She had spent the weekend with them and they all arrived at the house early in the afternoon.  They were the first parents to visit during our time here and it was both really nice and really strange to have parents around.  At one point, I heard Wesleigh say "Mommy" and I almost started crying I was so jealous.  But anyway, they had very kindly brought a few things for the rest of us and we watched the movie Tangled together that night.  A very sweet and heartwarming end to the weekend!



I'm Still Here!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick message to say, I'm still here in Mexico and I'm still happy and healthy.  I just haven't had the time lately to blog, but I promise a good, thick, juicy, photo-packed update soon.  It might not happen until my next descanso this coming weekend, but it's definitely in the works!  Sorry for the lack of posting.

Love you all and thanks for reading!

Detail Me! Intro

I've decided to start including small exposés in my blog, entries that are less about my day to day activities and more about going into detail with the lifestyle here.  Each of these entries with be labeled "Detail Me!" to distinguish them from my other personal stories and experiences and will hopefully help answer some questions you all have that I have so far been unable to expound upon.  Which brings me to my next point: send me questions!  I know there's a lot I have yet to explain and I do get questions from some of you, but feel free to pick up the traffic!  My email is sschalle2010@gmail.com.  Here's a list of some of the topics I plan on using (in no certain order):
 - clothing
 - aseos
 - comedor
 - social groups
 - school
 - male/female interaction/differences
 - padrinos
 - diversity
 - names
 - volunteer life as it differs from the house
 - etc.
So let me know! I'll try and cover a topic a week to give you more of the in depth perspective on how things function here.  And if you ask and I don't have an answer, I'll find one!  Happy reading.

Beautiful Banos (3/23-24)

 The rest of the week following my birthday was pretty chill.  The biggest news was that our bathrooms were finally overhauled by maintenance.  They spent two days, first gutting our floor and pulling out all the tree roots from the pipes, and then pouring cement over the whole thing the next day.  As sad as we were to see the giant pile of dirt behind our toilet go, it was rather exciting to use our bathroom again.  And by exciting I mean shockingly amazing at how much easier life was with a completely functioning bathroom.

The long view of our entire bathroom.  Love the pile!

 

The hole!  This one hole solved all our bathroom problems! 

I'm not sure I've explained fully what our bathroom status was prior to this event.  When I arrived, our toilet had no water in it or the tank so we had to use a bucket to flush (it kind of worked okay that way).  Our sink and shower both drained poorly.  This worsened over time until the shower flooded the room that fateful night (Vday) and the sink basically quit draining at all.  My roommate persisted in using our bathroom while I gave up completely and became the bathroom nomad, traveling to the other rooms to use the shower or toilet.  Her persistence resulted in every once in a while poop erupting out of our shower drain (GROSS!!! is the correct response).  Bottom line: pretty bad.  The other bathrooms weren't faring too much better.  The other girls' room had a functioning shower, but no functioning toilet and a sickening smell that was so bad that if the bathroom door was left cracked open, they would wake up in the middle of the night.  The sala toilet (which all the girls' were using for a couple months) would randomly stop itself up and refuse to work for a while.  The boys' bathroom (ironies of ironies) was the only fully functioning bathroom in our house.

Our sink at its worse.  It wasn't draining and so a bunch of tiny, black worms (the spots of black in the photo) decided to borrow it for their swimming pool. 

The maintenance never responded to our pleas for help.   Apparently these problems have been the same for the past seven years because of our giant beautiful tree in our patio.  It's roots like water (go figure) and so it takes water from wherever it can find it including our bathroom pipes.  The house was getting tired of going in and making such massive repairs which were then nullified within a few months by the tree again.  As a group, therefore, we decided the tree had to go.  This decision was made a few weeks before the repairs actually started.  Thankfully, they decided to repair our bathrooms before chopping down the tree and so March 24th I entered our bathroom for the first time in about 2 months!  A date for the history books.  Bottom line: I can now use my bathroom to its full potential and life is much more beautiful because of it!