Super Super Heroes - Part 2... And My Not-so-super Immune System

We finished off our SuperHero series in youth group this past saturday with a lesson on Daniel. The hommade video this week was so funny, I thought we were going to have to bring in oxygen for the youth group kids they were laughing so hard! Ok, not really about needing oxygen...

So here are our 5 heroes: La Mole (the big guy from Fantastic 4) - Adiel, Superman - Alex, Spiderman - Dany, BatMan - Justin, and SuperWoman - Whitney.


Now on to a not so fun subject. My failing health. Ok, not really, I'll be fine. But I have had a rather bad illness apparently since september, it just kept reappearing, and I thought I was just getting sick a lot. Nope. But now, after two weeks straight of being sick, I'm on the road to recovery. On Thanksgiving day, I was diagnosed with Salmonella, but sent to get blood work done just to make sure. Yesterday, I went back to the doctor to find out that it was really Typhoid (Salmonella is a type of Typhoid). Thankfully, I had been immunized against Typhoid in 2002, but the vaccination only lasts 3 years. I had enough still in me to keep the illness to a minimum. I feel alot better, but will be on a diet for the next two weeks, and anyone who knows me knows that I'm NOT a diet person. I'm a "street-tacos, ice cream, and pizza" person. I think I'm up to par with being a healthy Mexican now though - I got a new Typhoid vaccination (a must for living here...), and will get "de-parasited" every 6 months. Thats a nice thought, now isn't it! heehee!

All in all, I should be feeling better in the next few days, be ready to eat normal things in two weeks, and I'll be off to Honduras December 17!! Of course being very careful as to what I eat...

Thanksgiving!

Although rather ill, I was able to spend Thanksgiving Day with a bunch of other "gringos!" There were about 25 of us in one house, eating all the goodies of Thanksgiving! I thought that I was the only non-southerner gringa here in Queretaro, but there is a couple from Indiana who I'd never met before... Needless to say, there were a few dishes at the meal that I'd never heard of before, like cornbread dressing (apparently an essential to Thanksgiving dinner), and congealed (CON-gee-old) salad, which is like a creamy jello fruit dish.

Here is our potluck spread:

And one of the three tables we had set up:

Me with the other young gringas - Stephanie, Laura, and Mary.

And to finish off the evening, we sang hymns - IN ENGLISH together!

I ate pumpkin pie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a great day!!

Part Two

Another full week with a short term team from NPCC in Atlanta!

This team from North Point helped us host a "GroupLink" which is a large meeting of people who are already involved in a small group, and those who are looking for a small group - so those who are looking can find a group that's right for them!

Here is a small look at the conference:

Here is the small group that I am a part of (not the one that I lead), with our new members. We are: Liz, Ana, Claudia, me, Edith (the leader), Sandy, and Sara. Silvia is missing from the picture. Liz, Sandy, and Claudia joined our group during GroupLink.

Every vacuumed grass?? I have! NPCC bought us a blower vac for the buildings and grounds, and I was using it to suck up the sawdust...

The team also helped us put 4 sets of stairs on the stage (stage was unfortunately not ready to be carpeted as we had planned...)
Jan (aka Juanita), me, and JP modeling a new set of stairs.

Here's the whole team: Liz, Jim, Andy, Jan, and Diane.

And me with the ladies at their goodbye party

Then we had a birthday party for Aaron, a Horizonte staff member:

Wow, aren't we mature?! The guy with his tongue sticking out, that's the youth pastor! hahaha!

And Aaron after getting his cake smashed in his face (anyone who is familiar with my blog knows that this happens at EVERY birthday party!)

Last but not least, yesterday we had a pizza and movie afternoon for the university age small groups from Horizonte! Mmmm, pizza!

After moving WHILE the short term team was here, and all the other activities of the last two weeks, I'm grateful that today is a national holiday, which means that I don't have to work either!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! Please eat some pumpkin pie for me, as I can NO WHERE find canned pumpkin... and if they think I'm making a pie from a real pumplin, well, I'm not! Have a good one!!

What's been going on the last few weeks - Part One

Ok, I have no internet in my new home yet, so I've completely neglected everything that has to do with internet for about 2 weeks now...

Here's a picture update of what has been going on...

The youth group "anti-halloween" party:
All the teens trying to shove as many marshmellows as possible into their mouths (I WON! 13!)

And here they are trying to pop balloons that are hooked onto other peoples' feet.

We had our monthly church potluck - picnic style!

My Three Houses

Just a little update on me...
We are finally moving this week! And to top that all off, I am living out of three different houses! Most of my stuff is in house number 1, the one I've lived in since I've been here. I now have a bed, a bookshelf, and a dresser and closet that I haven't yet assembled in the new house, and I have all my dirty clothes and a few other things at the Kreveres'. I'm staying there with my friend Ana this week while they are gone. I am loving living in a semi-big house with a roommate! I thought it would be nice to have the van to drive around to move my stuff too, but the more I drive in QRO, the more I'm glad I don't have a car - it's kind of nightmarish, I'm highly suceptible to road rage, and I cringe everytime I see the gas gague lowering. But it has served nicely to use for carting my furniture around.

I'm getting very close to time to go to Honduras for a few weeks too!! I leave December 17, and get back here on January 8. I'm also going to the island of Roatan with my Honduran neighbor Luisa and my brother Franklin!!

Well, it's been a crazy week so far... and it's only tuesday!

Queretaro Driving Manuevers

People say that the drivers in Queretaro drive way worse than the drivers in Mexico City. Hmmm, population 1 million vs. population 20+million? But I think it's true.

Here are some of my favorite driving manuevers that I've seen pulled by Queretanos:

• Wrong way on a one-way street (I'M even guilty of this one! But hey, in a residential neighborhood with wide streets, it's dumb to have the streets only go one way...)
• "Bypassing" stop lights - this is my favorite that the busses do, there is a stop light by my house where the busses kind of edge a little ways into a parking lot entrance so they can avoid stopping at the red light - it's like they're exiting the parking lot!
• Left turn from the right hand lane - This is a favorite of the busses. I honestly think I see it every day.
• "White line? What white line?" - traffic lanes in QRO are very similar to those in the U.S. However, here, those dashed white lines mean absolutely nothing. A street that is two lanes in one direction can soon turn into 3 or 4 lanes - if you can squeeze by without taking off someone's side mirror, it's all good.
• U-Turn on a red light - self explanatory.
• "I put my hand out the window, so it's legal" - you can get from one side of the road to another very quickly if you just stick your arm out the window and go for it. Ignore the horns beeping to the "tune" of an offensive saying...
• And my favorite: Left hand turn from the right hand lane on a red light - yes, I have actually seen it happen!

I have never been in an accident here in QRO yet. It is an interesting experience though to see these lovely driving manuevers on a daily basis.

I still say that Queretaro has nothing on Tegucigalpa Honduras. They have the manuever that I call: "50 mph down-hill on a two lane highway through a residential area, passing someone on a blind curve." But, that is how two guys got killed in front of my house a few years ago... And in QRO, if you DO get in a wreck, it's handled similar to in the U.S. In Tegus, if someone gets hurt in a wreck, you better run and hide or you'll never see the outside of a Central American prison again.

So, now do you have a little bit more respect for those poor vehicles that carry Californian plates? Happy driving!!

Discipling

These are the lovely young ladies that I have been meeting with regularly over the past few months - Lila, Ana, and Lluvia (Lluvia works in the ministry also, she was with us during this picture, she is a good friend of mine). Unfortunately, the picture didn't turn out too well, but you get the idea.

Lila is 20 and works in the mornings and goes to school in the evenings, leaving... well, not much time for other things. But we meet when we can to discuss what is going on with her, and for prayer.

Ana is 25 and moved to Queretaro in August looking for a job. But, God had other plans for her, and she now attends the School of Evangelism at Horizonte. It will be a hard but good year for her I think!

And I meet with Lluvia once a week for a Bible study - I need to have someone who can pray for me and build me up too!

Super Super Heroes - Part 1

Before we get started, I just wanted to mention that I DID post the very few pictures that I took in Oregon on my blog - the one in spanish, in case you want to see them, you can click here...

In youth group, we are doing a really cool series - super heroes of the Bible! Every week, we have a fictional superhero who comes to youth group, and then the study on the real superhero from the Bible. We have had two weeks of the study so far: "Spiderman" - Samuel (the topic was serving God and others), and "La Mole" (don't know what his name is in english, it's the rock guy from Fantastic 4) - David (the topic was "a heart that seeks the Lord.") Each week, Spiderman (a.k.a. Dani) will introduce the fictional hero of the week, here he is with La Mole (a.k.a. Shultz).

Both weeks so far we have made videos of the hero from the movie, and they are really funny! This past week, with La Mole, we paid a city bus driver to pretend to run into Mole in front of the university! There were a lot of angy drivers backed up behind the bus but it was hilarious! (In Fantastic 4, Mole stops a firetruck, so we had him stop a bus...)

The teens have been really excited to come to youth group (I think the funny videos helped draw them in...), and have remembered what the topic of the real superhero was each week. I asked some of the high school girls what we learned about the previous week, and after saying "spiderman," they all remembered that we learned about Samuel and being willing to serve God in whatever capacity He asks!

I think this will be a great series, and we have some really creative people on the youth group staff to make the lessons memorable!

More to come next week: How is BatMan relavant to someone in the Bible? :-)

Before Oregon...

Here, I'll let the pictures more or less talk for themselves... Here's the events of the week before I left for Oregon:

Water-night at youth group, above we are playng American football with waterballoons.

The past month, we did "Dive Deeper" as the theme for youth group - diving deeper into a relationship with the Lord. So, as a way to help the teens remember that concept, we set up the pool at church, and everyone (who wanted to) got to jump in!

Horizonte School of Evangelizm

I went to Bernal (a BIG rock/small mountain outside of QRO) with the school of evanglism students for a team building activity - we all climbed Bernal with one foot tied to the foot of another person!

Success! At the top of Bernal!!

So, that was a packed week before leaving to visit my parents in Oregon!

Ana and Diana

I have about a half a jillion pictures that I could post on this blog today, but I'm not going to - that will have to wait until maybe friday or so once I am in Oregon and somewhat rested!

We'll start with the best first:
Sunday evening, I went to the Centro with Ana for crepes. (I seem to be going for crepes a lot lately!!) Here's the long version of Ana's story that she told me... Ana moved to QRO the middle of August to find a job in industrial engeneiring (QRO is the place to come to find that kind of job!), and was living with a lady from her home town who had also moved to QRO and wanted to rent a room to her. After about a month of job searching, Ana was getting sick of hearing that all the companies want a man, not a cute little 25 year old girl. Her money ran out, and she didn't know how she would pay the lady she lived with rent for that month. The lady said that if she couldn't pay, she'd have to leave in 2 days. Ana is from the state of Mexico, so it's not like her parents can drive across town to come get her and her things and take her to their home. Ana's time at this house in QRO had been anything but pleasant, but she was super unsure about what to do, only having 2 days to find a place to go! During her evening devotions, Ana read a passage in Proverbs that says "I will deliver you out of the house of the woman of strange words, who has forgotten her pact with God and abandoned the man of her youth. In her house there is death." Woah. Out of the blue, a friend who Ana didn't know was still living in QRO called her up and asked her if she wanted to move in with her! So she packed her things and went that very day! Right after that (like a matter of days) Ana took a part time job at some telemarketing company to earn a little money while looking for that industrial eneneiring job. Somehow the Lord spoke to her and told her that she needed to enroll in the Horizonte school of evangelizm at my church (Ana has been attending our chcurch since she came here). So, 3 days before school started, she enrolled. During the first week of classes, Julian and Whitney were getting desperate about finding a young lady to live in their spare bedroom and help with house cleaning and taking care of their girls. They met Ana. Ana needs a part time, super flexible hours job. So she is moving in with them in like a week!

Now to this past saturday night... Ana went home from youth group tired and needing to finish her homework. She came home to find her roommate drunk (which NEVER happens with thie girl). The roommate had just broken up with her boyfriend, and was really sad and decided to bring home a bunch of alcohol to help her forget about everything. Ana talked with her for a little bit, then turned on some worship music while doing her homework (which was for school of evangelism, where the text book is the Bible). Her roommate commented on how the music made her feel better, and Ana read to her out of the Bible what she was studying for school. Her roommate hinted around that she would really like a Bible. On Monday, I brought a Bible to Ana that we have at the cafe for just such and occaision. Her roommate was really excited and wants to start reading a book about Jesus (one of the gospels)!

This is the second roommate that Ana has shared the Lord with - a few weeks ago, she brought another girl who also rented a room from the not-so-pleasant lady to church, and we gave her a Bible, and she really enjoyed coming to church, but her work schedule hasn't permitted her to come back.

Ok, I know this is rediculously long...

Diana, Alma, Aixa, and Pablo have been coming to the cafe for several months, and have become good friends of mine. Diana is a Christian. She met the others at their university, as they are in the same major. Aixa and Pablo are a couple who plans to get married in the near future. Alma is extremely interested in the Bible, and "religious things." As many times as Diana has asked her if she wants to become a Christian, she hesitates, and decides no.

Yesterday, Diana came into the cafe, almost in tears, but happy. She said that that day, Aixa decided to begin a relationship with the Lord!!! VERY exciting!! But, Diana is moving to Monterrey in about 2 months, in fact she left for there today for two weeks. So she is concerned that no one will be there to help Aixa grow in her faith, and to keep working with Alma and Pablo. That's where I come in, she said. I will be here (unfortunately will be gone for a week). I talked with Diana about a study that we have here that explains what the Bible is, why we read it, who God is, who Jesus is, what salvation is, and why we need salvation in Christ. Diana thinks that both Aixa and Alma may be interested in doing that study with me (and probably Lluvia).

Today, Alma, Aixa, and Pablo came into the cafe. Lluvia immediately invited them to the 3-part marriage seminar that will be starting at Horizonte this week. Aixa and Pablo are very interested in attending, AND, we found out that Aixa lives in the neighborhood right across the street from Horizonte! They (Alma, Aixa, and Pablo) also invited me to go to Toluca with them for the day (about 2.5 hours away) because there is a place by there where it snows, and the girls have never seen snow... I hope I can go, I think it would be a good way to get to know them better, because I really just know them from hanging out at the cafe.

So, this was a long and possibly confusing, but I have a really hard time expressing my thoughts in an understandable manner... heehee

Next up, PICTURES from last saturday's wet and crazy youth group, and from today's adventure to Bernal with the school of evangelism students.

Independence Day - Part 2

PICNIC!!

Saturday, after sleeping in until 10am (some of the church staff slept until after 12!!), the church staff headed out to the town of Tlacote, where Edith lives. We brought all the leftovers from the Friday night party at church - three flavors of tamales (including my favorite - sweet tamales with pineapple!!), quesadillas, tostadas, and 10 gallons of "agua" - pineapple and horcahta (we had 20 gallons in total the night before, wow!)

After a good big meal and a game of 3 on 3 basketball, Martin headed up some picnic games.
Recognize this? -
This time, we threw wet sponges, and it was supposedly at the birthday people! Justin and Edtih both had their birthdays on September 16, so that was another reason for the party. But, seeing as Edith is a woman, and turning 58, they decided to give her a break and let her pick someone else to get sponges thrown at them in her place, so we didn't get to throw them at Edith, but at JP insead.

We also had a water relay game in which my jeans got completely soaked, and american football with water balloons!!

Here is the whole group of independence day picnickers:
Justin and Edith with their birthday cakes (Justin turned 30!!)
And Justing after his "mordida" (every birthday person has to take a bite out of their cake, and 99% of the time, someone smashes your face in the cake while you take a bite. However, after 58 birthdays, Edith has learned how to bite her cake and avoid getting her face smashed in it... I was really looking forward to seeing that...!)
It was a beautiful day for a picnic... until about 7pm when a cold wind started blowing and we frantically threw everything in the house and left for QRO, but enroute, we got in a torrential downpour - couldn't even see past the car in front of us on the highway. But we made it home safely - still wet from the water games, and then from the rain - but safe and happy!

Independence Day, Part 1

So, September 16th is Mexican independence day, and we at Horizonte took the opportunity to have an outreach event on the night of the 15th (which is when everyone starts celebrating). We held a traditional Mexican carnival, complete with lots of games, piñatas, and a TON of FOOD!

We did have a little glitch though... Here's me in the kitchen about an hour before the event started:
Yeah, you know you have problems when you are in the kitchen, under the roof, and are getting rained on! We had a small waterfall of water coming in the wall behind the stage in the auditorium too...

Here's the enterance to the church, with Schultz attempting to unclog a drain: (you can't really tell that there's a step up where the pillars are...)

We had a smaller turn-out than we had hoped, but it was still great!

Here are Justin, Lluvia, Nadia, and Adiel in their Mexican garb (wow, can you tell who is the gringo?):

Me, Micaiah, Whitney, and Nadia looking cute!

So we decided to have a "throw a pie at a member of the pastoral staff" area, not knowing if people would pay money to do that. We sold tickets for 5 pesos (like 50 cents of $), and they sold like hot cakes!! (we are raising money to buy a drum set for the church - we have been borrowing one for a long time, but now have to give it back)

I personally think that this picture of me throwing a pie at JP is priceless... especially since, after I posed for the picture, I totally cheated and ran up to smash the pie in his face! It was a big scandal because it was the rule that you HAD to stand behind a certain line to throw... heehee! He deserved it!

Schultz after getting pied - look, he's a reverse Michail Gorbechev... white spot on dark head instead of dark spot on white head!

Soon it was my turn...

JP, Schultz, Kike, Joanna, and Dani all ganged up on me and got me good.

Here is Mauricio giving "el grito" which is a long string of one person saying "Viva Miguel Hidalgo!" and the crowd says "VIVA!" "Viva Ignacio Zaragoza!" "VIVA!" Viva Morelos!" "VIVA!" and "Viva Mexico!" "VIVA!!" There are a lot of names that they go through. It is in rememberance of the people who had a part in the Independence of Mexico.

And several guys in costume prancing around on stage.

So, that was Independence Night for me this year, it was a blast! And I ate wonderful home-cooked food, including corn on the cob covered in mayonaise, grated cheese, chile, and lime - very traditional, tostadas, arroz con leche, taquitos, and jello.

Next to come - pictures of the PICNIC of Independence Day!!

Board Meetings?

I have heard many people call church board meetings, "bored meetings." This is not the case for us! It seems that every week, apart from hearing a brief from each person who is in charge of a ministry, we end up telling funny stories too! We have an amazing group of, well, young people who make up the church staff of Iglesia Horizonte. It's been a huge blessing to work with them!
The Horizonte church staff with the ministries that each person leads in italics: (back row, L to R) Sara - school of evangelism (also high school girls leader, and office help, production), Lluvia (Global Grounds, and university girls leader), Justin - Global Grounds university ministry (university guys leader), Me (Global Grounds, university girls leader, cleaning/projects), Nadia (junior high girls leader, cleaning/projects, nursrey/preschool ministry), Jean Paul (university guys leader, projects/construction, production, school of evangelism), Mayte - Sunday morning produccion (marriage counseling, family ministries, school of evangelism), Martin - senior pastor (school of evangelism), and Edith - family ministries (office help, community groups, womens' ministries, school of evangelism), (front row) Julian - community groups (young couples' ministry, office help, junior high boys leader, school of evangelism), Adiel - youth pastor (projects/construction, production, school of evangelism), (Gerardo - Adiel & Nadia's son), and Juan - projects and construction (junior high boys leader, production). Wow!

There are lots of other people who help out a lot with various ministries at Horizonte, but those of us who meet weekly are full-time.

Did I mention that our church staff is a barrel of monkeys?!

Staff meeting gone ary

THIS Close...

Well folks, it looks like this is as good as it gets:

Circumstances didn't allow that I go to the Chivas v. Gallos game tonight in QRO... Chivas (of Guadalajara, my FAVORITE soccer team, with my FAVORITE player OSWALDO SANCHEZ) were in QUERETARO tonite to play the QRO Gallos.

Here's the whole story... I found out like 2 months ago that Chivas were coming to QRO today. I got together with Rubén and Job from church (also avid Chivas fans) to see about all of us going. So the plan was in action. But, Saturday, they both said they didn't have money to go (we hadn't gotten tickets yet). I wanted to cry. I can't just go to the stadium by myself for a game... So that was that. Then, this morning while working at church, I mentioned to Alex (Rubén's brother) that Oswaldo Sanchez was only a few short kilometros away from church right then. He said, oh yeah, Rubén went to the hotel where the Chivas were staying last night to meet them. WHAT!?!?!?! And he didn't tell me!?!?!?! He ended up going to the game tonight too - some friend had pity on the poor guy and paid for his ticket. I watched the game on tv at a taco restaurant. :-( They tied. That's okay though, a tie is good because it makes for a better chance of Gallos staying in the big league so maybe Chivas will return here next year...

Horizonte

Here is a lovely picture of all the adults and young people (missing the majority of the kids who were in class still) last sunday! I am guessing there are about 200 people in the picture... I know we have 180 chairs (I set help them up every saturday!), and they were all full so some staff members stood during the service... then we add some kids who left class for the picture...

And we're all decked out in the sanctuary for Independence Day - This Saturday the 16th of September. Actually, the celebrating starts Friday night. I will be at Horizonte, we are having a carnival, along with various traditional Mexican games, and costumes. We hope to leave there by 2am! Then Saturday is picnic day - most families gather together to eat the left-overs of the previous day's feast. I'll be at Edith's house (a Horizonte staff member) with the rest of the church staff and their families.

La Pachanga

Wow, the past few days have been a blur of lots and lots of stuff going on! After recovering from the little friends that were swimming around in my stomache, I dove into normal life... which just keeps getting busier every week! In July, when we had short-term-team followed by youth camp followed by another short-term-team, I remember thinking that when all that was over I'd have lots of time to relax. But that just never happened... I LOVE what I do though, so even if it is sometimes exhausting, I still enjoy!!

Last night may possibly have been one of my favorite days ever. Now, I DON'T make a habit of riding around with a car full of boys, so yesterday was an exception, and besides, Ana was going to come but ended up not...
So, me, JP, Schultz, Dani, and Aron all went over to JP's house to watch a movie. It was the one about a lady who got kidnapped and miraculously reaches some random kid's cell phone by re-assembling a broken phone in the room she's locked in... Not sure what went wrong here, but the movie kind of turned like that dumb TV show "Mystery Science Theater" (not even sure that's what it's really called!) where two puppets make funny comments while watching movies. The movie really isn't a funny one, but there were times when we were just dying laughing because of all the crazy comments. It was so bad, in fact, that Alex, Polla, and Sayuri came over about 15 minutes into the movie, and decided to leave because they thought we were too over-the-top!

After the movie finished, we wanted to go downtown. It started raining. No one had hardly any money. But we went and walked around, soaking wet in the Centro, got stuffed churros (about 50 cents each), pizza and pop, and stood outside the pizza booth (you can't enter the building, you just walk up to the window and order you pizza slice and go sit in some plaza or something) eating and making up ridiculous dance moves to the Mariachi music that was playing in the pizza booth. The few other people who were actually out in the rain walked by pointing and laughing. We proceeded to the car and woke up one of JP's neighbors (hey, it was only like 11pm!) from singing too loud in the car (ok, "singing" is a stretch, more like screeching).

And now, I am procrastinating. I have to finish translating another chapter of small-group material to take to church with me at 8:30 tomorrow morning, plus I need to get stuff ready for my english class and my spanish class (I am going back to school!!), and here I am writing this dumb journal entry. heehee!

We Have a President!!

I'm pretty sure the Mexican presidential election this year took even longer to decide who is the president than the US presidential elections in 2004. Since July 2, it has been up in the air. I think it was Sept. 5 that they actually pronounced a for-sure winner. Felipe Calderon will become the next president of Mexico in December.
He beat Lopez Obrador (pictured below) by... 2000 votes! TWO THOUSAND VOTES. Millions of Mexicans voted (even some who died years ago voted... hmm) I don't even think that CAN happen in the US, with electoral college and stuff. Anyways, it probably wasn't a perfectly fair election, but I would've voted for Calderon, and not this guy:
So Calderon will succeed Fox:

Yay, elections are over, and we didn't have riots in Queretaro. Of course, most of this state supports the PAN, the political party of Calderon, so the only demonstrations that I heard of here were in favor of Calderon. In other parts of the country things are a bit ugly at times because of unsatified citizens.

In other news, it looks like I will be going to a Guadalajara CHIVAS v. Queretaro Gallos Blancos soccer game this wednesday!!! It's my first EVER professional soccer game, and my very favorite team (Chivas!) with my very favorite player (Oswaldo Sanchez, the goalie of Chivas and the Mexican national team) are playing in MY city!! Yay!

Sick. Mnah.

Ok, I am now passing through my first non-self-induced stomache sickness since being in Mexico. Self-induced?!? Well, the other two times I've been stomache sick was because I ate things like: choriqueso (greasiest food you can possibly eat), pork tacos, two bowls of beans, a liter of strawberry juice, and a chocolate drink all in one meal. When you eat like that, you're just asking to be sick! (Now, I realize that, and have refrained from eating like that!)

So, I've had a bacterial infection twice before (strangely, both times involved travel between Honduras and El Salvador...), so I know the symptoms, which I will spare you from reading. I knew monday night that after slurping down a few limes with baking soda and I still didn't feel better, that I had a bacterial infection. I am now on meds, so hopefully by tomorrow I'll at least feel better.

Another post with no pictures (what, do you want a picture of me looking pathetically sick? heehee!), but I just haven't been taking many lately. Everything is back to "normal" for me, so I haven't been carrying around my camera, but hopefully later this week I'll get something on here for you all...

Help! Brain is on Fire....

Ok, translation is HARD. A week ago, Edith (a church staff member in charge of small groups) gave me a chapter of a book in english to translate so we can use it for small groups at church. No problem... I thought. I took the chapter that same day to work on with my my friend JP, so he could help me make the translation make more sense in spanish. An HOUR later, we had done about one page. There were 10 pages to translate. So I went to church later in the week to work on the rest of it - by myself, as working with someone else (for me) is about as productive and calming as letting my mom teach me how to drive a stick shift (in other words, it's unproductive and frustrating!) I finished in 3 hours. But wow, 4 hours of sitting at my computer typing and THINKING in two different languages. You should've seen the amount of Diet Coke I went through...

So now, I am on the next chapter in the book. One chapter a week! It's getting a bit easier, but I left my dictionary at home. BUT, a new Italian Coffee Company (Mexican equivalent of Starbucks) opened near my house, so I figured taking my computer there and enjoying a nice Moka FriOreo Frape could help. It did.

Translating. I think that has to be the thing that I am LEAST accostomed to of living here. But, it's a good learning experience (I hope you read this, Kristen!!)

Ok, off to teach english class! (which is probably the second thing that I am least accostomed to here...) No, I'm not complaining about living in QRO or about my job or culture, just some things are harder than I'd like! But it's all good!! :-)

Monsoon Season?

That's a pretty good description of this week in Queretaro. Wet. The following pictures were taken a week ago at my house:
Here, we see my street, about 15 minutes after the really hard rain and hail had stopped. It rained really hard (with marble-sized hail) for only about 7 or 8 minutes, and the streets clogged up, water was pouring in our front door (you think I'm kidding, but it really was pouring in! The wind blew the rain directly at our door and windows in the front of the house, and the geniouses who built the house left gaps in the door and window frames so the water comes right in if hit at the right angle). Gaby was gone, so me and the kids got out a bunch of towels to try to keep the water from getting the rugs wet. I was about ready to start getting all valuables onto the table, beds, counters, and any other surface that is high enough to not flood. But thankfully the rain died down before it came to that.

We have two cute yellow parikeets at my house, and we put them in the backyard (under a roof) during the day. About 3 minutes into the rain/marble-sized hail, we remembered that the birds were still outside! I donned my only hooded jacket to go outside, and the kids warned that I had better cover my head with something hard because of the hail. So I used a plastic plate cover (the kind of thing you cover a plate of food with to go in the microwave) on my head under my hood. Should've gotten a picture of THAT! But the picture above is my jacket upon returninig to the house after seriously like 8 seconds outside, and some of that was under the roof!

Friday night, I went to Lila's house at about 10pm. We were going to go out to a cafe, but she didn't feel like it, so I thankfully went to her home. At about 11pm, we were finishing eating dinner, and I was about to say that I should get to bed. All of a sudden, there was a huge blast of thunder/lightening, the electricity blinked, and rain like I've never seen before started falling. After about half an hour of that, I doubted that I'd be going home that night, so I prepared to stay at Lila's house. But her brother thought maybe we could make it home, so we tried. The first few blocks were alright, but we got to one intersection, and the water was litterally flowing like a river down the street. Lila plowed through, and I was afraid the current would take the car with it! I had my hand down at the bottom of the door to feel when the water entered the car, which, miraculously, it never did. At one point, we saw water actually entering homes. My neighborhood was hard to drive through, but the houses didn't flood. (Gaby's house flooded a little over a foot deep 3 years ago!) The next day, I was going to work at the church, and a took a bus, and we went through a puddle so deep that the water entered the bus!! I also walked past somo houses where ladies were sweeping water out of their homes. Actually, that big puddle in the road is still there today (48 hours later). I should've taken a picture of that...

But such is life in Queretaro.

Also, my foot is feeling a lot better. Not perfect, but it doesn't hurt to walk, I am just resting it as much as possible. (The therapist who I went to saw me in high heel shoes at church today and just about had a fit...) oops.