Holy water and Zika

I thought parots only exsisted in the zoo or in the jungle. But there are about 20 in the trees above me right now making lots of loud noises. I guess I am closer to the jungle than I thought. 

Monday we took a long mountainy bus ride to Cuernavava. Its really pretty here. All the houses are colorful and the streets are really steep and go up and down everywhere. It kind of reminds me of san francisco. There are a lot of trees here and they are all full of these huge colorful flowers. Its all very green and lush. Its kind of a magical place. 

The people here are a lot nicer too and everything is just calmer. Sadly we only stay here until Friday and then we are heading out to the ranchos to start working. 

I think I got a tad bit of food poisoning so I have been much more careful about what I eat. 

I have seen a few billboards about Trump (obviously not in support of him). One nice old man was talking to me about dancing on the street and asked me what I thought about Trump. I told him I didnt like him and he told me that Trump was really mean disrespectful to mexicans. And then I kind of realized how much we would seperate ourselves from Mexico if Trump wins. And that would be a huge loss for us. Our country has always been about accepting immigrants and accepting others. Mexicans and other latinos are extremely hard workers and very kind. It would be damaging to our country if we lost them. 

We are all missing vegetables. I feel like they dont exsist here. If I do see a vegetable I get nervous about eating it because of all the water problems.

Anyways, I am excited about getting to the ranchos! The touring has been fun but its time to do something with a little more purpose.

 I really love my group. I feel like I have known them all forever. 

Yesterday was a terribly long day. We awoke very early to go see some anciant cathedral. There were some mummies in it and lots of fun looking confession booths. There was also a giant tub full of holy water. People come in all day long to fill a cup with the holy water and then have it bless their home for the week. I rubbed some holy water all over my face hoping that it would help my stomach. We also saw a giant marble box thing where they put everyone's ashes. Of course we also went to see some more art that I tried really hard to appreciate. 

Then we drove an hour away from Cuernavava to a mountain with a city of ruins on it. I liked it a lot more than the other ruined city we looked at. There were some trees but it was extremely hot. We walked along the ruins through these hills until we came across this cave. We stepped in and walked through these dark tunnels for longer than I would have liked. I was pretty proud of myself for staying calm in this place of my three greatest fears (spiders, the dark and small enclosed places). It was a really narrow tunnel until we came to this opening. There was a pinhole of a opening in the ceiling that the sun shone through. We were there to watch the sun's cycle or something. We sat in a circle around this tiny drop of light and watched as it grew bigger and bigger and then started shaking a bit. And then (an hour later) the cycle was done and it disappeared.  We just sat in the cave in silence watching the circle of light. It was pretty cool. 

Then we walked around the pyramids and ruins. We saw all the different places they did human sacrifices.  We were up in this mountain for 5 hours without any water. It was around 110 degrees and humid walking up and done these stone stairs. A couple times I thought I was going to die but we made it back down the mountain and someone was selling cold coke and the end. It was a wonderful moment to have liquid again. 

After we went to a nice restaurant for dinner and then we all jumped in the hotel's pool. Our professor is really funny and played marco polo in the pool with us for a long time. It was our last day all together so that was sad.

This morning we woke up to travel 2 hours back to mexico city and then took another bus 5 hours to Irapuato. We are staying in a hostel type place here. Lets just say its not the cleanest place. We will be here tomorrow getting trained and then saturday we are splitting up into our little ranchos! 

Landes, our wonderful security guy, left us this morning. He is headed back to the states. I was really sad to see him leave. I also feel a lot less safe with him gone. Our professor is leaving on saturday and then its just going to be the 6 of us..seperated from each other..in this place that seems like it truly is in the middle if no where.

Today is cinco de mayo and Mexico has made it quite clear that they do not celebrate it. Most people here don't even know what it is and there is no sign of any celebration going on anywhere. I thought that was funny. 

Anyways, I think the next week will be pretty tough but it should be good! 

PS. I'm testing out the whole zika virus thing. So far I have about 10 mosquito bites but I'm still feeling good! I will keep you updated ;)

People places and things

We went to the panaderia for breakfast this morning again. I got this raspberry stuffed bread thing that was covered in raspberry sauce and powdered sugar. It was actually good and not dry! So the day started off good! We were also able to sleep in. 

We went to a diego riveras museum and then some other musuem. I'm getting kind of sick of art. Then we went to this place called chupetic park. Its this huge park..kind of like golden gate park. There were vendors everywhere selling all these wonderful things. I thought about getting you all some gifts but then I remembered what you all did with the gifts from Chile. 

Anyways, we walked around this big palace thing and then went to the museum of anthropology which was huge and super cool! I'll send lots of pictures of that. Oh, we ate lunch at this outdoors patio that was super good! I got some awesome flautas (basically taquitos but softer). 

We got back to the hotel around 9 but I was still hungry so we roamed the streets looking for tacos. We found this heavenly taco place. I only got 3 tacos but I should have gotten 20. They were these tacos made with lamb amd pineapple and were just out of this world! You know when you eat something and its just so amazing that you cry a little? Well I took a bite of that glorious taco and almost had a meltdown. It was like a little piece of heaven. I'm really hoping that they are open for breakfast tomorrow. The place was very interesting as well..you almost couldnt breath it was so crammed. They also were frying the tacos like 8 inches behind me and it was all pretty hot and steamy. You dont care about those things though when you are eating dewdrops of perfect love. 

I'm doing well (obviously..all I do is eat tacos). I look similar to a lobster but I'm going to buy a hat tomorrow to help with that. 

When we were walking down this super busy street I saw a vendor lady. Backstory: lots of vendors dont have permits to sell so they just lay their merchendise out on blankets on the side of the street and if they see a police man they just roll it up in their blankets really quick. So they are some of the poorer people. Anyways, I looked down and saw this lady changing her babies diaper on the blanket where she sells her merchandise. It made me feel bad that neither this lady nor her baby get any privacy. 

They are out in that street all day trying to make some money and who knows if they have any sort of home to go back to after. Its a really hard life. I was thinking about the desperation that must come from having to change your baby's diaper on the place you work with hundreds of people almost stepping on you. Then I noticed that this lady didnt have any hands. It was one of those kind of startling images that really stays with you. We are all really blessed for everything we have. The people here work sunup to sundown (literally) 7 days a week without any breaks or vacations.

I hope you all have a great day!

So yesterday was another musuem day. We went to Frida Kaulo and Diego Rivera's house and toured around there. That wasnt super impressive but someone was selling bowls of fresh mangoes outside that were amazing!! The mangoes were creamy and just melted in your mouth. It was incredible. 

After the mangoes we went to this little historic church in this cute town and to a hippie market. 

We passed a bunch of teenagers in the back of a truck and they were kind of laughing at us at yelled out "where are you from?". My professor yelled back "del infierno!" (from hell). It was really funny. He's a funny guy. 

Today we got up really early to take 3 different metros to get to church. I really dislike the metros but I'm getting more used to them. It was so fun to be back in a latino ward. I felt so at home. Its interesting to see how much more they focus on the basics of the gospel here (and in chile) and they dont get caught up in far off doctrine things. It feels much more like a "everyone is learning together" experience and not a show off show that happens so much in the US. Its just a different feeling that I like a lot more. I wish our US wards could be more like these latino wards. They are so sincere. 

After church we went to the famous basilica where the virgin guadalupe has her cape or something. We attended this huge mass with incense flying everywhere. It was interesting to see people crawling about. A lot of people put a towel under their knees and crawl all the way to the cathedral from outside the gate (thats like a 1/4 mile!). It was fun to see everyone with roses to lay at the alter and kissing everything. I think the whole city was at mass. Its nice to see a whole country so religious. 

I got to eat more of those amazing tacos today. People in my group have become amazed at the amount that I can eat. I dont know why they are surprised..this is what I have been training my whole life for. 

I am continually amazed at how hard everyone works here. Most of it is hard physical labor in the sun for 15+ hours a day. And yet they are still mostly happy and kind. We walked by this huge fountain in front of a musuem and saw about 20 kids playing and swimming inside it. Some of the adults were in it too and everyone was splashing everything. They have their priorities straight here. They work hard for their family and any extra time they spend devoted to them. Social appearances and any sort of competition hardly exsists. I think that is a great example to follow. 

I love Mexico City. I love more than just the food (although that is a huge thing for me). I love all the cathedrals and the street dancing and how at any moment you can count at least 15 police in sight. We are leaving tomorrow..and I am sad. I love these streets.