Pirates of the Azufres

And after the big week with the team from NPCC... we went immediately to Horisonte youth camp! It was held at "Los Azufres de Michoacan." I didn't know what Azufres were before I went, but as soon as I stepped out of the bus I knew - sulfer springs. And wow, could we ever smell that! 42 young people, ages 11 to 25 went on this camp...

So, we had quite an adventure to start the Monday morning out with. All 42 of us going to camp met at church at 7am, and tried to load all our stuff onto a small rented bus. It was extremely uncomfortable, but we managed to fit everything. We left the church, them JP got a call from Martin (the pastor) saying that we needed to turn back to the church immediately. So we did, and JP wouldn't tell ANYBODY why... We got back to the church and unloaded all our junk, then the bus LEFT, and we all gathered in the sanctuary. Martin said that when we were leaving and he was stepping off the bus, he smelled alcohol on the bus driver, so we had left and he talked with his wife and some other people, and they said we should get a different bus/bus driver. Which we did. And the bus was way bigger, and the driver wasn't drunk.

So we got the the Azufres 3 hours late, but everyone safe!! And we set up all our tents...

(Shultz, Alex, Leslie, and Adiel)

Most of our tents were "2 person" tents, and many of you know that "2 person tents" means it sleeps ONE comfortably. So many people were rather squished in the tents! But, there was a "5 person tent" also, and we had so many tents that only 3 people stayed in the 5 person one - me, Lauren, and Leslie. We probably got the most comfortable sleep of anyone! (But I say it was fair, me and Lauren are the two biggest girls at the camp, we needed our space!)

We divided the group into three teams for games. Below is the Blue team, the team that I was with:

And each team had a "mascot..." Actually, we didn't have enough bandanas for each person to have a bandana in the color of their team, so the youth pastor brough Lucha Libre (westling) masks of the color of each team so the person who didn't get a bandana could wear that...

Shultz, Joanna, and Dani, the lucky people with the Lucha Libre masks!

Brisa and I can't be around a camera without taking a weird picture of the two of us...

Did I mention that in the confusion of the bus situation in the morning, we forgot ALL the meat, cheese, and eggs for the camp?! Justin and Lluvia drove to the nearest town to buy several dozen eggs and some cheese, and the bus driver came back with the bus on tuesday, so he was nice and brought us our meats!

Here is a fake picture of Leslie, JP, and Janah enjoying molletes (bread rolls with refried beans and cheese - very typical dinner) and hot chocolate.

Sleepy the next morning?! No way!

It's not easy to cook eggs on a "comal" (a large grill that is used to cook Mexican foods like gorditas, sopes, and quesadillas). It took about half an hour before the eggs even started to cook! We got extra protein that morning, as during the cooking time, quite a few "animalitos" found their way into our eggs.

And the big draw of the Azufres - the naturally heated pools!! There are three pools there, all at different temperatures. The coolest one is probably about 90 degrees, the one that I spent all my time in was about 100, and the other one was just too hot in my opinion. If your're wondering, yes, the water does smell somewhat like sulfur!

(Sara, me, Hanía, Fany, and Yetzi with several other people from Horizonte in the background)

Leslie, me, and Fany are the three looking at the camera in this picture

Lunch time... AFTER the meat arrived! Hamburgers cook AWESOME on the comal, and we enjoyed those!!

(Back to front clockwise: Carmelita, Mariana, Leslie, Kristen, Lauren, Sayuri, and Pollita)

Maybe we enjoyed the hamburgers TOO MUCH... We ended up havivng an impromptu "who can shove the bigges bite of burger into their mouths" contest. Shultz, Dani, Adiel, and I participated. The hand at the bottom right is me, and that is the bite that I shoved in my mouth. But they disqualified me as having taken the biggest bite - I was laughing so hard that part of my hamburger fell out of my mouth.

The camp turned out quite well despite the disorganization (the leadership basically played everything by ear, we were unprepared!), but bus mishap, and the food being left behind. The kids didn't even know that we had left the food!!

It was wonderful to see everyone hanging out together - even people who had rarely been involved in the youth group were excited about the games, swimming, and spending time with other people their age. I hope the community built during this camp lasts! I was encouraged on sunday to come into the sanctuary at church and be rushed at by 3 of my high school girls who I had barely known before the camp... they ran up to greet and hug me, and said they missed me the rest of the week!

Spiritually, I hope that some seeds were planted. There were three people at the camp who did not attend Horizonte before the camp - I know that 2 of them are not Christians, I'm not sure about the third. But all three of them were at church this sunday! Please pray from Montse (she is 16, and one of my high school girls), Lalo, and Jazmin. We also heard some positive feed back about our "solo time" at camp - 3 hours that we gave the kids to be alone in the woods with their Bibles and God. I was happy to hear that people enjoyed the time to rest in the Lord and dig into the Word.

Bus problems on the way to camp?! They didn't end yet... On the way back, I noticed that we were passing through the city of Irapuato - it's out of the way to get back to Queretaro from Michocan. At one point we were on a one lane road in the middle of nowhere - my "worst case scenario" brain was thinking that we were all getting kidnapped, but we werent! We didn't have any cel phones that had air time on them (we told the kids not to b ring their phones, so only like 3 leaders had phones), and we were arriving in QRO about 2 hours late. Finally, Martin called and asked where we were when we were like 20 minutes from the church, we said we'd be back in 20. Right after hanging up with him, the bus got a flat tire! We were in the middle of road construction outside of QRO (a 15 minute walk from my house), blocking the only lane going in our direccion. And the spare tire was UNDER all our belongings!! The bus company ended up bringing another bus that we switched to, but parents were a bit worried that we showed up almost 2 hours AFTER we had told Martin that we'd be there in 20 minutes! We got back to church, and I think I can speak for all the leaders when I say we were ready to go into hibernation for a few days after the camp/NPCC team!

You'll have to stay tuned for what happend NEXT for me... And I thought I'd have a restful, un-eventful weekend after the camp... haha!

The Rest of the Story

Here are some more pictures of the short-term team that came from North Point in Atlanta:

Rubén, Job, and Peter playing guitar before youth groups started

Rubén, Job y Peter tocando y cantando antes del grupo de jóvenes

Alyssa, Katherine, Nora, and Lila after youth group

The worship team at Horizonte while the NPCC team was here - both mexicans and gringos! El equipo de alabanza el domingo que estaban los gringos - ambos los de Horizonte y los de North Point tocaban.

The team from North Point. El equpo de Atlanta.

Suzanna, JP, and me

Nora, me, and Alma Rosa

Bryce (a.k.a. YMCA), Chalío, and me

Rebecca, Blake, Micaiah, Chalío, Rubén, Julian, and Dani. A bunch of us from Horizonte accompanied the NPCC group to Bernal, a big rock outside of Queretaro.

Algunos de nosotros de Horizonte fuimos a Bernal con los de North Point.

Edíth, Liz, Brisa, Me, and Kent on the bus from Bernal to QRO

Brisa, Kent, Rubén, and Dani

Weird? Not a Chance!

What happens when four youth leaders are exhausted from spending 14 hours a day with a gringo work team for a week, doing cement and a soccer field, having a massive 60+ people youth group in Global Grounds, climbing a small mountain, planning a youth camp, and buying stuff for the youth camp at 11pm the day before the camp??

THIS:

Adiel being smothered by a bag of 80 bolillos (individual sandwich sized bread rolls) in a VW Bug.

JP and me

Juan a.k.a. "Hulk" trying to safely drive during the madness

More to come about the rest of the NPCC short-term team and the Horizonte youth camp!

Episodes From a Short-Term Team

As I previously mentioned, we have a team of high school students from Atlanta here working with us this week. They arrived on Monday evening.

Orientation
I was working on preparations for our upcoming youth camp, and got a call from Whitney that we needed like 12 2-3 liters of pop for the orientation meeting. I got the call about 30 minutes before the meeting started, and I was already on the bus. I was thinking, "wow, how am I ever going to get 12 big bottles of pop from a store to the hotel..." So I called JP. It turned out that he and Adiel were just leaving the church, which is a few blocks from a grocery store that I was passing at that very moment on the bus. So I got off, grabbed all the pop, and they were there by the time I paid. I LOVE Mexico, I hardly had to carry anything because here, the guys have to do stuff like that for the girls! So I got off easy!

The teens from Atlanta aren't nearly as scary as I had imagined. They're actually quite nice and cooperative! (not that I had a pessimistic attitude to begin with or anything...) I got my first round of translating WHILE someone is talking. Julian was giving the orientation, and since we were only 3 who don't understand english, he didn't pause to let me translate to spanish, I just sat in the back with Martin, Adiel, and JP trying to listen to english, think, and speak in spanish all at the same time. To anyone who translates like this on a regular basis - I now have TONS of respect for you!!

So, I woke up Monday night with a bad stomache ache, and ended up spending a couple hours in the bathroom. I was so worried beacuase I really needed to be with the team on Tuesday. I started feeling better in the morning, so I just arrived like an hour late to the church... Not sure what that little bout of sicknes was...

The Soccer Field
At the church, the teens (both gringos and mexicans) are putting in a soccer field over the bumpy dirt area where we normally play soccer after church. Wow, is it ever a big job!

Here is some of the dirt that was delivered to the church to cover the bumpy hard dirt with so we can eventually lay the grass. We spread it all by hand (picks, shovels, and rakes).

Sarai, Chelo, Kristen, and Lauren hanging out after working...

Lucy (organizes the awesome food for everyone!), me, and Brisa...
Day Two

I am learing more about cultural differences, and that NOT everyone has the same feelings and ideas as me!! I translate between the english speakers and spanish speakers during the work at the church. Martin, Fany, Chalio, and JP also speak english, so that helps a bit, but when bigger decisions are involved, the leaders come to me. Ok, that's fine, that's what I'm here for. But translating attitudes is really difficult!! At one point, the Horizonte leaders thought the leader of the Atlanta team was angry with them, but he was only trying to figure out the most efficient and simple way to make the field as good as possible. Other times, the gringos just didn't understand why we can't: get a big machine to level the field, get the dirt and grass to come at the exact time we need it, and things like that. I am in an interesting position as I can see both sides of things like this. It's definitely a good learning experience.

Here is a picture of the field at lunch time of day two...

Youth Leader Training

I spent the late afternoon with the other Horizonte youth leaders meeting with the youth leaders from North Point (Atlanta). They explained to us their model of small groups in youth ministry and how they create relevant environments for youth of Atlanta. They have 500+ teens that come weekly to they giant church, so we are definitely working on a different scale than they are, but the concepts that they have shared are very helpful. Meetings like these, as interesting as they are, make me feel like I have ADD - having everything translated doubles the time on everything. Julian translated the entire meeting, and it had to be super frustrating as most of the mexicans understand some english, and "helped" hime choose the right words... Julian will not be at the second half of the meeting on thursday, so I am the translator. If anyone is actually reading this and you think about me about noon tomorrow, please pray for me: that I can pay attention, correctly relay the information being given, and not get terribly frustrated when people correct my translation! I am excited to get help on organizing our youth group a bit more effectively through these meetings!!

Random Pictures

Here is a picture of some yogurt that Brisa's mom bought for her adult children who live at her home, and made them each drink one... Yep, you are seeing the picture correctly on the yogurt label - pineapple, cactus (nopal), and celery. In yogurt.

And here is a picture that we made for a 6-week youth group series: cuerpo o puerco (body or pig). It sounds WAYYY better in spanish, it was a series on how to honor God with our bodies (using our hands to help and not hurt, guarding our eyes and hearts from things that make us stumble, etc) so that we have good bodies and not pig bodies. (The words for body and pig are kind of similar in spanish). So we decided to take funny pictures of the youth staff and put our heads on pig bodies...
Left to Right: JP, Aaron, me, Jenn, Julian, Adiel, Nadia.

It's All Over...

Four more years... Yep the World Cup ended yesterday. After Brasil got beat in the quarter finals, I wasn't near as interested in it as I was earlier. But of course I watched the final. France v. Italy, and thankfully Italy won. Of all the european countries, Italy is the one that I would most want to win. But in 2010, watch out world, the 2005 "under 17" world champion was MEXICO, so we should be all set for a big group or 21 year old Mexicans to knock all other countries out of the competition! I hope...

Here is me with the Italians celebrating their victory!

Well, this is probably the last blog I'll be writing for the next 10 days or so. Starting today, no, actually, starting two days ago - I have stuff to be at/people to see/things to do from 9am until 10pm. Then thursday the 20th, after three days at youth camp with 40 other young people, I should be ready to die in my bed for a day. No, I am really looking forward to all that we have going on for the next 2 weeks! Today, the 40-high-school-student team from Atlanta arrives to help put in a nice soccer field at our church, to help with a work project at an orphanage, and hang out with the youth of Horizonte! During that time we'll also be having a massive youth group (I have NO idea how 60+ people are going to fit in Global), and going to Bernal (a big rock that you can climb in the Queretaro outback). I'm helping with translation during the work projects. Then the day that the team leaves, the Horizonte youth leave for Michoacan for our 3-day camp. It's absolutely amazing how my experiences in Honduras match up EXACTLY with my responsibilities here in QRO - helping to organize a short term work team, translating for them, being in charge of the games at camp, teaching a worshop at camp, etc. Just that I have a lot more responsibilites here. I wasn't IN CHARGE of anything in Honduras, just helping and observing, and wow is it ever helpful that I had those experiences!!

Please be praying for us these next two weeks. Rebecca, and intern who arrived saturday, is going back home tuesday as her grandpa unexpectedly died a few hours before she left the States on saturday. She'll come back to Mexico on thursday. Pray for me as I get cranky with little sleep, and I won't be getting much for a while! Pray for the youth leadership as we try to finish camp preparations while the gringos are here. Pray that the short term team will have good attitudes and be a blessing to Horizonte.

Thanks!! I'll be ready with pictures and updates maybe the 21st! And me and the other gringas go to Guanajuato (where I did spanish classes for 5 weeks) on the 22nd! yay!

Oh yes, and Felipe Calderon is the new president of Mexico, he'll take office this December! He'd be my choice for president!!

Yummy!

SEE!?!?! I CAN cook! The other day we had a meeting at church for those of us who are planning the upcoming youth camp. The meeting just so happened to be during lunch time, so I said that I was going to bring my lunch to the meeting. Then I remembered, "Hey, this is Mexico, I can't just bring food for me and eat it in front of everybody else!" So I thought maybe a potluck would be good. But the other 3 people coming to the meeting were two single guys and a guy whose wife wasn't going to come. So that's when I decided to just bring food for everyone! And it ended up that Nadia (the wife) came too, so 5 of us enjoyed about half of what I served... in the house that I live in here, the 5 of us could eat DOUBLE what I made!

So, clock-wise from the tortillas, we have tortillas, a chicken and vegetable guiso (basically for a guiso you just invent some kind of sauce (I almost always do tomato sauce), and throw in whatever meat and vegetables you have hanging around the house...) Chori-frijoles (black beans with chorizo sausage), guacamole (YES, it IS homemade by me), and red rice.

The only complaint I had from anyone was that they don't like zucchini.

Also, I found out this week, upon calling my Honduran brother Franklin for his birthday, that Suyapa is going to the USA in December!! I'm really excited for her! I wish I could be in Oregon and have her come up then, but I must choose between buying myself AND Suyapa plane tickets to Oregon, or just buying myself a ticket to Honduras and I'll still get to see Suyapa plus the rest of my family and friends. I choose going to Honduras. So that brings me back to cooking... Suyapa will be gone for the first week that I'm there, so I am officially the "chef encargada." I am just hoping that doesn't mean that I am in charge of the Christmas meal too... last year we had about 30 people in our house for Christmas! I talked to my Honduran next-door-neighbor Luisa today though, and happened to mention that, and she said her and her mom and sister will at least help! I feel comfortable cooking for up to maybe (MAYBE) 8 people, but NOT a Christmas dinner for 30! haha!

PAN or Peje

Mexican elections were Sunday. I asked several people when we would know the results of the elections (obviously thinking of elections in the US, where we don't know for weeks!), and everyone said "we'll know late tonight, like 1am, or tomorrow morning." They say that it's NEVER taken longer than a few hours (polls close at 6pm). Well, this time it took longer. As far as I know, there still hasn't been a "for-sure" decision made. The newspapers this morning say that it looks like Calderon won (YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!) but I don't know if that's the final answer. We'll see!

I got my visa today to live here!! YES! I'm a legal immigrant!!

Oh, and it's the 4th of July. Happy 4th of July! I'm doing nothing special today... the first year EVER. I've been in Brasil and Honduras on the 4th before, but I've always done some sort of celebrating... even in Honduras when we had a piñata and went out for chinese food. That still counts as celebrating! I was going to make deviled eggs to take to our youth camp planning meeting, but I forgot to boil eggs, so I guess I won't. I always think of deviled eggs as 4th of July food...

Anyway, have a good one everybody!!

Oh, Youth Group Fun!

Wow! A journal entry that's not about soccer!!! heehee!

I have a few pictures of youth group stuff from our church here at Horizonte.

Here are some kids in a typical youth group game - having to hum a song with your mouth full of water, and everyone else has to guess what song it is.

We are starting small groups in the youth group, and me and Aaron are in charge of the high schoolers. We hope that eventually, we'll have enough high schoolers that I can take the girls and Aaron can take the guys. But right now, there's only two guys.

And then there's the University crazy people of the youth group (yep, I'm university age here!) Last night, several of us went to see Poseidon Adventure. And afterewards, we decided we needed to go to the Centro for some Juajolotes (HUGE sandwiches made on big rolls dipped in hot sauce, with meat, cheese, cream, avocado, tomato, lettuce, beans, and chiles) Chalio brought his car to the theater, so we decided that since he had to go in the car anyway, we ALL should go in the car! Only 7 of us went to the Centro, but did I mention that Chalio's car is a VW bug?!

Here is me, JP, Alma Rosa, Nora, and Lauren in the back seat (Alma's in the WAY back)

And this picture is difficult to see, Chalio took it by putting the camera out the window in front of the windshield. So we have Kristen, Me, JP, Alma, Nora, and Chalio. Lauren's squished back there somewhere!

It's great fun to hang out in the Centro on sunday evenings! There are like 5 plazas that have music, and LOTS of places to eat! We also ran into Job and Alex from church, and three other people who we all know from Global.

Living here is good!!

And the Curse Continues

Alas, we are no more.

Mexico scored two goals today, to Argentina's one goal. Unfortunatly our little friend Borgetti scored his goal in Argentina's goal. So they won. And we are no longer in the World Cup. And I am sad. And I have no voice from yelling at the Mexican National Soccer team today. And my favorite Mexican soccer player, who has been on the Chivas (my favorite Mexican soccer team) is going to play for some dumb european team (if he doesn't play for Madrid, I quit).

Well, I will probably quit being quite so fanatical about the World Cup now..... GOOOO BRASIL!!!!!!!!!!

Here is me and Rafa Marquez looking sad together after Mexico's 1-2 loss to Argentina.

I retired my Mexico jersey today. It can come out again maybe when I go to a Gallos Blancos game this year.

Oswaldo, Rafa, Kikín, and Omar. So What Happend??

I am in the process of losing my voice. Why? Beacuase for almost two hours I was yelling at the Mexican National Soccer team. They probably heard me in Germany too. As any of you who follow the World Cup know, Mexico lost today. 2-1 Portugal. It was so ridiculous! Both Portugal and Mexico scored one goal fair and square (yay Kikín!). Then Portugal got a penalty shot, and made it. But it was a REALLY good shot, can't blame that one on Oswaldo (the goalie). THEN, Mexico got a penalty shot when we really didn't deserve one, and good ol' Omar Bravo MISSED it. Just him and the goalie, and he missed. Then there were the other two or three shots that Bravo got off, that were RIDICULOUSLY far away from hitting the goal.

Thankfully, Angola and Iran (the other teams in our group) tied 1-1, letting Mexico still miraculously move on to the next round of the Cup. We play Argentina on Saturday. The odds are not good.

Here is my new favorite picture:

Me, Oswaldo Sanchez, and Arelly!!

Vaaaamos Mexico........

How Can You TIE in the WORLD CUP?!?!?!

So there WERE a lot of people in Global yesterday for the Mexico/Angola game! There was also a lot of yelling and jumping up and down... Mexico played pretty well, I think we had possession of the ball like 65% of the time, but Angola's goalie, oh man, NOTHING (Litterally!) got by him! We had about 8 REALLY good shots that totally should've gone in. I'm sorry to say that if Angola had as many good shots against Mexico, Oswaldo wouldn't have been able to block them all. I think it should be against the rules to TIE in the World Cup, but we tied 0-0. Uff.

But I do have some interesting pictures!

Here's most of the people who crammed into Global to watch and cheer:

Afterwards, lots of us went bowling!!

And here are the new gringas who you haven't seen yet:

Brasil Scapes By, Ecuador Eats Tico Pie

As promised, I put a photo on here of festivities of the World Cup. Here is me with Brasil jersey and Brasil flag painted on my face. The white screen behind me is the game, but it was too light to see it with the camera flash...


Brasil played Croatia on Tuesday, surprisingly only winning 1-0. It was a really good game though, Croatia plays awesome.

Then....... there was today. Ecuador v. Costa Rica at 8am. Yep, I went to Global to watch it. But, it wasn't televised! I was a bit perterbed at having gotten up so early and not be able to watch. So I decided to listen to it on the radio on the internet. Better to have just taken a nap or something.... Ecuador won 3-0. I have a hard time being upset that Ecuador is doing really well in the Cup, they ARE an acceptable latino country. But I still go the Central America route. Ecuador now qualifies for the next round, and Costa Rica doesn't (although they still have one sympathy game to play against Poland next week).

Friday, MEXICO v. ANGOLA!!!! Should be good!! We are expecting quite a crowd at Global for this one - a bunch of people from church are coming, and today everyone who came in was saying that they would come and bring friends. So, we could have like 8 people, or we could have like 40. We'll see...
Pictures of the festivites to come probably saturday...

Do Gringos Taste Good?

Is it correct English to say "we got eaten?" Or should it be "we got et?" Anyhow, in spanish "comer" or "eat" is what you do to the other team in sports when you whoop them big time. The Chech Republic got a BIG taste of the USA today, as in a 3-0 win for the Chechs. Yep, they "ate" us big time. I went (again) to Global to watch the game on the big screen, and those same Miguel and Chuy who were NOT rooting for Costa Rica on Friday were NOT rooting for the USA today either. Well, I decided that for those of you (probably all two of you who read this!) who don't care much about soccer, I will try to take a picture at all the major games (major in my opinion being any game that USA, Brasil, Mexico, or Costa Rica are playing in) so you can see a little bit of game-day fun. Like today, I have NO USA soccer jersey, so I did my best in red white and blue and added some face paint. Checo let me put a flag on his face too, even though you can bareley see it... Speaking of Checo... in Spanish, people from the Chech Republic are called "Checos." That is also the nickname here for people named Sergio. But Checo didn't root for the Checos...


And I found another interesting picture today to share with you... Last week, I put up a few pictures of the 70's nite that we had a the cafe, but lamented that I didn't have any pictures of me in my 70's clothes. Yep, that orange and brown thing toward the left-middle of the picture is me... heehee!

And the Winner Is... SANCHEZ

Yes, the locura (madness) has begun!!! Friday morning was the World Cup inaguration, and first game - Germany v. Costa Rica. I was unpleasantly surprised that some of my friend here were rooting for Germany... A bunch of us gathered friday morning at Global to watch the game on the big screen projector. Costa Rica lost 2-4, but better luck next game.

Today was Mexico's first game, against Iran. After church was over this morning, we gathered in front of the screen at church to watch the last half of Mexico v. Iran. WE WON 3-1!!!!! Everyone knew that they had to win this game (and all that follow) for Oswaldo Sanchez, the goalie (also goalie of my favorite team - Chivas). His dad was going to leave Mexico for the first time ever to go to Germany to watch his son play in the World Cup. Then he died last sunday or monday. But Sanchez is back in the game, playing for his dad, who would be proud.



Monday is the USA's first game. We play Chech Republic. I realized today that I have no USA paraphanelia - I have Mexico jersey and flag, Brasil jersey and flag, and I cheated for Costa Rica and wore a Honduras jersey, but I don't have anything to wear for my own country!! Sad.

Anyhow, apart from soccer, I expect this week to be rather busy - we are planning a week of 3 hour english classes for NEXT WEEK (yikes!!), enrolling the new gringas in spanish classes, hosting World Cup at Global, I have some Bible Studies going on, a video to help make for youth group, and youth camp planning meetings. Wow. I LOVE all that I am involved in (with the possible exception of the english week that I'm not super excited about...) so I know it is great!! I'll be catching up on sleep today and monday to prepare for the next two weeks...

AND... GREAT NEWS!!!!!! Apryl, my good friend since I was one year old, is coming to visit me in Mexico in August!! She is coming for like 9 days. We hope to go to Oaxaca to visit her sponsor child there (although transportation is becoming a bigger headache for that everyday...) and hang out in QRO. I'm REALLY looking forward to that!!!!!

And for any of you who have entirely too much time on your hands, check out THIS. I KNEW Oregonians drive better than anyone else! Now we have the proof...

And Sometimes, Pictures Just Don't Turn Out Right!

Here we have what would have been a nice picture of Jenn and Mario. I found this in some pictures from last week. But, as you probably notice, it DIDN'T turn out to be such a nice picture, thanks to the lovely words in the background! haha!! To explain, we had karaoke going, and those are words to "YMCA." I laughed REALLYYYYYYY hard when I saw this!! heehee!

The New TV

(Adendum to my last post: I gave in and called our spanish school to change our placement test time to 10am instead of 11am, so hopefully I'll only miss the first half of Germany v. Costa Rica... I know, it's rediculous!)

Two other gringas - Lauren and Kristen - arrived yesterday to work with our ministry for a couple months. I went to Mexico City to pick them up. I don't know why bus travel drains the life out of me, but I always come home really tired - 6 hours (3 hours at a time) on a bus that is WAYYYYY more comfortable than an airplane, PLUS a trip to the Starbucks in Mexico City, I had no reason to be so tired! Ahh!

So today, I went with the girls on a self-directed tour of QRO - as in, I gave them a sheet of directions to various locations around QRO, and they found their way on busses, walking, etc. to the locations I had specified, and I just walked around with them, being of no help when they didn't know what a street name was, etc.... which was the point of the whole thing.

At one point, we passed Elektra - an electronics/appliance/furniture store, and I stopped in for a second to buy more minutes for my cell phone. Upon paying for my air time, the Elektra lady told me that I could get a TV with my purchase for just one peso. That's like a dime! So I said sure, I'd like the TV, gave her a peso, and they brought out a little tiny TV for me. (I knew it would be tiny, what do you expect for one peso?!) That was at like 12:30, at the BEGINNING of our trek through QRO. I carried the stupid TV box for an hour and a half, then we ate lunch, and I went to teach an english class, and I ended up having to carry my TV all the way home (like 20 minutes more of walking). At least the thing is miniscule. But still, a 9X9X12 (or so) inches box filled with a TV isn't light. And I kept laughing because it seemed funny that I carried around a TV all day. Well, I got it home, and it does in fact work. So there's my interesting Mexico story for today - getting a TV for a peso.

You Know You're Adjusting to Latino Culture When...

You have to compulsively check ESPN.com before scheduling anything to make sure there's not a World Cup Soccer game at that same time! You wouldn't want to miss a game, or worse yet, make anyone ELSE miss a game!

Haha! Seriously, I am making a schedule for some gringas who are coming to work with us for two months, and I check to make sure we're not missing Mexico or Brasil games! Of course, we have cable at the cafe, and will be showing at least all the televised games that involve Mexico or Brasil. That just struck me as funny! Friday begins the madness - Germany v. Costa Rica at 11am (here). I think the Germans who made the game schedule chose that to be the first game of the Cup because they knew there is no way that they WON'T beat Costa Rica (poor Ticos...) I'll root for Costa Rica anyway - Central America represent! Well, I'll root for them AFTER returning from me and the other girls' spanish placement test that I accidentally scheduled at 11am on friday BEFORE consulting ESPN.com... haha! I figure we'll get the last 15 mintues or so of the game...

On a happier note for those of you who don't care about soccer, here are a few pictures from this past friday night - '70's night at the cafe!!

Brisa, Lluvia and Justin

Estefani, Laura, and Alvaro enjoying karaoke!

I unfortunately don't have any pictures of ME at the party! I had a brown dress with big orange and yellow dots on it, so you can use your imagination! After the party, a lot of us went downtown to enjoy "Antojitos," of basically the traditional Mexican version of fast food. I got home at 1am, probably not the best idea considering how much stuff I have going on this week, but it sure was fun! There is another group of gringos here, with Southern Baptist missionaries, and our friend Nolan is hosting them. He's my age, and the group of gringos are like early 20's, so with them, and several people from Global, we enjoyed downtown at night, and food that the other gringos kept worrying about getting sick from... haha!

Alan, Jenn, Mariana, and Silvia - Jenn's last day in QRO, with her Mexican family.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Mexico City to pick up 2 new gringas who will be working with us for 2 months!!

No More Annonymous Please!

I am all for people commenting on my journal entries, but PLEASE let me know who you are. You don't have to have a Blogger account to post a comment, but you CAN leave your name. Also, what I write here is my thoughts - hence the name "Mis Pensamientos," so if I say things like "Queretaro is in the middle of the desert," that is MY opinion, in this case comparing Queretaro to my home town, which is wet and green. Queretaro is not either of those on a regular basis... in comparison to how I grew up.

So: Comments = good. People annonymously "correcting" the thoughts from my brain that happen to make it into this blog = NOT COOL.

Thank you.

Daily Life

Here are a few pictures so you can see who I am with, and what I do on a regular basis!

Above is most of the Horizonte youth leadership team: (L to R in back, then the guy in front) Adiel (the youth pastor), Aron, me, Jenn (but she left today to go back to the States), Nadia (Adiel's wife), Julian, and J.P.

We meet every Friday to plan the youth meeting for Saturday evening, as well as planning special events, which right now is the youth camp in July.

Every Wednesday, we have a potluck at Global with the people who work there, and pretty much anyone else who wants to come. Here is: Justin, Lluvia, Nacho, Vanessa, Jonathan, and me. Yep, I cook! I make good "chori-frijoles" (refried beans with mexican sausage) and "guisos" (meat and vegetables cooked together in tomato sauce and meat juice). And my no-bake cheese cake (Thanks mom!!) is a big hit too!

And here's my new method of transportation! No, not really, there's a moto/bike/scooter sales place next door to us, and we are friends with the employees, so one night when they were bringing in the bikes, they let us ride them! That bike was sooo tiny, I could lift it up by myself. I think I'd be embarassed to actually ride that around town!

(Just to follow up on the last blog entry, the NEXT night, I was woken up at 1am by Gaby because the house almost flooded! It was POURING down raing, and you could see the water in the street rising, and it entered the place where the car can be parked, and was coming up to the step up to the house. I moved all my electric stuff up onto my desk, and got my suitcase (storage!) out of the 2nd shower (our storage cupboard) because we could hear the water starting to come up the drain. Thankfully, we didn't flood, the water started flowing down the street instead of just sitting there!!)

And We Thought Californians Were Wimps...

Last night it rained. I was at Global from about 4pm on, and it started to rain about 7pm. I noticed that my english students kept looking nervously out the window, and I just thought that it was because they knew they would get wet when leaving.

Then about 9:30 (the rain had stopped!!), I noticed that there was traffic on a side street to the cafe, a street that is never busy, and less so at night. In fact, last night, the traffic was at a stand still on that street! People started leaving worrying about how they would get home. Someone said that Zaragoza (a main street by the cafe) had flooded and that's why all the cars were on our street. I was working with Jenn, and we left a little after 10pm to take taxis to our homes. I left her in front of the cafe, and started walking to the entrance to the university where there are usually a lot of taxis headed in the direction of my house. (don't worry, it's well lit, and there are a lot of students leaving the university at that hour, so I wasn't alone in the dark at night!!)

On my way to the entrance, I noteced that NO cars were moving and that I hadn't seen even one taxi! I waited about 5 minutes, and still the cars hadn't moved, so I called Gaby to tell her what the situation was, and I crossed the street to a taco restaurant to eat dinner there. About 20 minutes later I left the taco place and went back to wait for a taxi. And I waited. And waited. And no taxis ever passed by. It was after 11pm by this time, and the taco restaurant was closing, and I didn't want to be out there all alone, so I was thinking about who I could call to come take me home. I knew that Gaby's car would be useless in the rain (our street floods pretty bad in the rain), Julian and Whitney's car was in the shop, Martin and Mayte were probably also stuck with no car because of the rain, Silvia's (Jenn's mexican mom) phone was not working, and I couldn't think of anyone else who had a car and that I had their phone number. Not good. So I started to walk. I was trying to think of the safest, not the fastest way to get home. Finally, after walking quite a ways, an empty taxi drove by, with a driver in a bad mood, who didn't want to take me home because he was convinced that my neighborhood was flooded even though Gaby had told me cars can still pass. So I arrived home at almost midnight, knowing what to expect next time it rains for two measly hours in QRO!

¡Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé! ¡¡Gallos, GALLOS!!

Here's the scene:
7pm in Downtown Queretaro. Every police officer and his pet rock are in the Centro. Many arrive with shields, others bring fences to set up around all the monuments in the Centro and to block off Corregidora Street so people from the 3 plazas on that street won't run into the street. Smart, and well-prepared is how I would describe the QRO police force tonight. Why? No, there were no riots, nothing bad was happening....

About 9pm, it began to rain. Whitney and her girls, and Jenn decided to head home. I was going to also, but there wasn't an empty taxi to be found. Julian called my cell phone to tell us the good news. 2-0 at half time! I decided that since I was already wet and couldn't get a taxi, I might as well just find a TV and watch the rest......

Queretaro Gallos Blancos (soccer) vs. Puebla in the Primera A league finals. Why is this game so important? Because the winner moves up to LA LIGA!! That means we are now in the big leagues. It means the CHIVAS will be coming to play in Queretaro. It means that I'll be going to LIGA futbol games.

When the game ended, everyonw was yelling, horns honking, blue and white flags waving, fireworks going off. Had I not been by myself, I would've stayed around downtown for a while. ALL cars headed for the Centro. I lft my spot near a big screen TV outside a downtown restaurant shortly after the game ended (about 10pm). It's 11:30ish now, and I still hear horns honking in celebration! Here's to the newest Liga Mexicana team!! Yay!



And what a day it is for soccer all over the world. My favorite Catracho team won the league title for Honduran league for the third year in a row. Olimpia Tegus knocked out Victoria of la Ceiba to become the champeons!
Sorry for those of you who read this blog and aren't into soccer. The next month and a half may be rough for this blog - World Cup starts in 11 days!!!!!!!!!