La Calera

A rancho is a small village. My small village is called "La Calera" and its about an hour or so to the closest city. 

On monday we went to the school to see what we could help with. The school is actually pretty large and has 6 grades..each grade has 2 classes of 40 students each. We talked to the principal of the school about what we could help out with. I expected him to just let us observe classes or maybe tutor some kids. When he learned I was studying psychology he said "great! we need a school psychologist! that can be you!". He told me to talk to the teachers about their troubled students and then to give therapy to them and their parents. When I am done with that he wants me to teach parenting and discipline classes to the teachers and parents. Its incredibly intimidating and obviously I'm super underqualified. I wanted to say no and do something safer but the principal acted like it was a great need and if I do my best I shouldnt do any harm. At the very least I can at least be a friend to the troubled students. The principal was pretty funny though and called us "angels from heaven". Abbey will be teaching english class here. 

Monday evening we went to some political event with our mama Rosa. She knows some top political people here in the state of guanajuato. They wanted to take pictures with us and I was worried we were going to have to give a speech. One of the governor people invited us to their house to ride their horses or something. Sometimes I feel like a celebrity here. And people are a lot nicer when I am here just doing service and not as a missionary. 

We also went to a store in the city with Rosa. She is very protective of us and will not let us go anywhere by ourselves. Not even the bathroom (when we are in the city). She also buys us treats all the time. She bought me an ice cream yesterday and when I had finished she asked if I wanted another. I said no but that made her mad and she got me another one anyways. She spoils us a lot and calls us her "white daughters". We feel like little girls just following her around and eating ice cream. But its fun. She is the sweetest! 

She thinks that we are abandoned children and cannot believe that we live so far from home. All her daughters still live with her and will never leave. She just thinks its the cruelest thing that we were "sent" so far away to study and then all the way here to Mexico. She takes her role of our "mom" very seriously. She feeds us like 6 meals a day and is always checking on us making sure that we are safe. She sends her grandchildren to spy on us when we are in the street. 

Yesterday was mothers day here and its a huge celebration! They celebrated the entire weekend! We went to a festival at the school and watched all the children dress up and do these traditional dances. It was adorable. After all the 13 grandchildren and 5 daughters and us went to go get ice cream. We rode in the back of the truck to get there..all of us. Its a miracle people dont die here more oftan. 

The food is amazing as always. I love just playing with the babies all day and feeding all the goats and pigs. I've gotten used to the roosters in the morning and to only drinking coke (clean water is hard to find). I have almost memorized everyones names and can walk the rancho without getting too lost. I'm also getting used to the heat and becoming okay with always being sweaty and just covered in dirt and sand. Its hard work living here but I enjoy it. The babies are seriously so adorable!!

In the rancho

Mexicans are such funny people...they really crack me up. 

Friday our professor took us to watch the Jungle Book and then we went back to our hostel to pack. We got a taxi to drive us to our little ranchos. Mine is about 40 mins outside of Irapuato..its called "la calera". Our professor came and dropped me and Abby (who will be in the rancho with me) off. The rancho is kind of hard to describe. Its very small and very much something I would picture when I think of Mexico. Its hot. There are hardly any trees and just little sandy dirt roads leading from one house to the next. There are no stores or anything like that. I feel like I have stepped back in time quite a bit. 

My host's mom is named Donia Rosa and she has 5 kids and like 13 grandkids who also most live here too. There is a main part of the house that has a kitchen, bedroom and living room and then there are add on's to the house everywhere. They built in a bedroom in the barn, on the side and in the roof. They make all the roofs flat here so they can just build up when they run out of space. The house is green and surrounded by animals. Most of them are in pens but there are always a few chickens, pigs and dogs running around free. They do most of their cooking outside and there are bathrooms outside of the house. Inside the house there are lots of statues of Mary and Jesus. They kind of scare me a bit. Me and Abby have a room on the roof. We have to climb a kind of sketchy outside staircase to get to it. But we have a great view! There is a giant poster of a baby in our room and lots of little religious statues. There is a door but we always use a lace curtain instead to help with air circulation (did I mention its crazy hot here?). 

When we got here they immediately sat us down to eat. There are so many people here its hard to remember anyone's names or who is related to who. There are a ton of kids here and adorable babies. Friday night we colored with the kids and held the babies. They have us this awesome bread and milk to eat before bed. We went to bed at 11:30 but the rest of the house stayed up until about 3 am blasting music. Then they all woke up at 7..and blasted music again. Its kind of hard to sleep here. We are also surrounded by farm animals and roosters that crow (not once but around 50 times) at 5 am. I cant decide if I think the constant animal noises are soothing or annoying.

Saturday morning we woke up and started doing our laundry. Its kind of a long process. We hook up differnt pipes to get water and then fill up 3 large buckets with water. Afterwards there is some more transporting of water that happens.  The whole washing process happens on the back patio. Then we place some clothes is soapy water and mix that with our hands. After a few mins of that we take the clothes from the soapy water and put it on a curved rock that is shaped like a giant bowl. We kind of knead the clothes on there (it feels a bit like kneading bread. Then we take fresh water and pour it over the clothes and try and knead out the soap. From there we put the clothes in another water bucket with perfume or something in it. Then we knead out the water from it and go hang them up to dry. The whole process took about 4 hours of constant work and my arms and hands just ached after. I gained a new perspective on how hard woman in the past (and in the present in many places) worked just to clean clothes. I felt like a pioneer though and enjoyed doing it. It was very soothing. Its good I liked it since I will probably be doing it every other day. I'm going to get very strong arms. 

I should add that I have changed my name. Everytime I said "Ariah" people would just vacantly stare at me. I decided I needed something more hispanic so I thought I would go by my middle name, Noel. But people were still having lots of trouble with it so now I am Noelia. It feels a little strange introducing myself as that and I still get confused when people say Noelia to me but I'll get used to it. 

I have cooked a lot since I got here. All the woman here mostly spend all day cooking and cleaning. I have made a lot of salsas, tortillas, enchiladas, chiles relleños, pastels and chopoed up a lot of meat and spices. When we are not cooking we play with the little kids and hold the babies. 

Yesterday we went to a little party with our family where we basically just ate. Some other people in our group were there too so it was fun to see them again. Then we came here and started preparing for a party they are having here today. The main portion of that preperation was slautering a lamb. They have a bunch of cute lambs roamimg around the house. My host dad picked (the cutest one) and sliced its throat. Then he hung it from a tree and blew up its stomach a bit. Then they skinned and totally dissected it. It was disgusting. During this all the kids are playing around the puddles of blood and chasing each other with the unattached lambs head! Then they took the parts of the lamb and dissected the guts in the tub right where we had washed our clothes earlier that day. I dont think I'll be able to ever wash my clothes there again. So basically my clothes arent getting washed ever.

After that we ate some awesome tacos and a vegetable soup. Around 10 I was ready to go to bed but they announced that we were going to a circus nearby. We walked into a circus tent. They had like football benches that were about 15 feet high and were made out of plywood that was about 6 inches wide. I cant really explain it but it was really sketchy and I was pretty scared the whole time. The circus had some funny dances but the best part was this gorilla. They turned off all the lights so you could hardly see anything and this guy dressed as a gorilla came out. He started running around and chasing people. When he got them he would grab their hair and YANK on it. He banged peoples heads together and it was absolutly terrifying. People were running up in the bleachers and they were all creaking and I felt like they were all going to break. It was really scary but pretty funny. Not something you would see in a circus in the US. Also they had some kids dress up as rockstars and give lapdances to old grandmas in the audience before the grandpas could slap them away. It was all very different. It ended around midnight and then our host mom announced it was time for dinner so we went to a little taco shack. I was pretty exhausted by then. 

Today our wonderful host mom, Rosa (who is the sweetest lady ever) brought us banana smoothies in bed. We spent the day preparing for dinner and then went with our family to mass. We ate a huge dinner (including the lamb) that was all just amazing! Then we had a tres leches cake for dessert. I'll probably wont fit on the airplane coming home. I am eating very well here. 

I held the cutest babies today. They are all so adorable. I had some good discussions with my new family too. I already feel so at home here. I love everything about this place. I cant even begin to describe the feeling here..but it is a wonderful place. Its not very pretty but the people are amazing. I dont think I'll ever want to leave.