Mexico

One of the volunteers on the most recent team took some great pictures that capture a lot of what we see here in Mexico.

Tuna

Yesterday after lunch I headed to the job site in an '84 jeep. That sweet little car is especially fun to drive because you never know when it might just quit on you and need to be restarted with a bizarre two footed motion. I ended up not quite remembering how to get to Kelly's land and wandered up and down bumpy dirt roads in that neighborhood until I drove to the end of a road turned around yet again and saw the group. I wonder how many times I'd driven past without knowing it.

I spent the afternoon at the job site getting thoroughly covered in dust and sweat and plenty of concrete. It was delightful. I wish it could happen more often this summer. In that wonderful condition, Ashley and I drove to H-E-B to pick up a few random grocery supplies. We couldn't resist buying this strange piece of fruit we saw. Amalia, the cook, said it's called tuna. It's good.

But by far the best new thing. . .

. . . is my newest nephew! William Reynolds Zuba was born on June 22 to Ruth and Radu Zuba! He's 7 lbs, 6 oz; 21 inches, has ten fingers and ten toes. All is well.

Other New Things

• A really great movie: La Misma Luna, or in English, Under the Same Moon. I recommend it.

• Mexican frozen yogurt - it's tangy, but a little sweet too - most excellent with fresh strawberries. American frozen yogurt just doesn't compare.

• Squeezing 121 limes for limeade - that makes two quarts of juice. I'm developing a vice-like grip. I'd be afraid to shake my own hand.

New Things

So I'm here as a summer staffer here in Mexico with four other girls and a couple guys. (There are also some short term staffers who come in and out during the summer.) It's been fun getting to know each other and every once in a while discovering something new and surprising about each other. I often find myself shocking these friends by what I haven't done (and occasionally, but less frequently, by what I have done.) Being a summer staffer in Reynosa means doing lots of new things, like driving fifteen passenger vans on roads with crazy Mexican drivers and crossing the border solo to buy thousands of dollars of groceries. For me it's also meant doing some things new to me but totally mundane to the other staffers. In the last month, I have shopped at Wal-Mart, pumped my own gas, and tasted Mountain Dew all for the first time.

Down the Shore, Texas Style

Yesterday was the last day of break week - a week without teams that gives us some well needed respite. We spent much of the day on South Padre Island on the beach and in the beach house of some friends. It sure was nice, but it wasn't my Jersey shore. The water was warmer, but the waves were tame.

Unwelcomed

A couple nights ago I came upstairs to find this little guy bouncing around the trash can underneath our bathroom sink. I've no clue how he got in because he sure couldn't get himself out. I released him outside, hoping for everyone's sake that he wouldn't return. Roaches are repulsive to me, but rodents I handle pretty well. I think he's kinda cute.

Here in Reynosa

I intended to be really good about posting regularly while I'm here, but my good intentions haven't been so well fulfilled. I don't really know where to begin. It's easiest to post pictures and let them guide my writing.


This is Casa Verde, the dorm building where I have been living and working this summer. (There's me in the corner!) Another summer staffer, Rachel, and I work in the kitchen. We are awake before the sun rises to set things out for breakfast and pack the lunch coolers before 6:30 staff prayer. We serve breakfast at 7 and the volunteers leave for the worksite by 8:30, giving us plenty of time in the morning to clean and make salad and dessert for the evening. Sometimes I head to the work site in the afternoon or snatch a quick nap or quiet time in the wicker rocking chairs that I love before the team gets back.


This is a little bit of Reynosa, the border city that I'm living in. It's a city of about a million people and growing rapidly because of the many factories. Half of Reynosa's population works in the over 200 American factories that are here. I live in the center of the city; the farther out you go the poorer it gets. Drug dealing is a huge problem - Columbia is the world's highest producer of cocaine; the U.S. is the highest consumer, and Mexico lies in between. Reynosa's new government claims to be cracking down on drug dealing, but of course they are turning a blind eye to the drug dealers that helped get them into office. It's all very corrupt. Every day that I drive through the city I see barely habitable shacks contrasting with beautiful, gated houses. Horses pull carts on the same roads that BMWs drive on.


On Wednesday and Thursday of this past week I got to go to the work site! I miss the work site. There's something very rewarding about manual labor, being sweaty and sore, and getting so dirty that dust flies up when I slap my leg. This week we layed lots of concrete which is always a lot of fun and completely exhausting.


This is the land that Isaiah 55 has recently bought! Since they came to Reynosa three and a half years ago, they've been looking for a site to build a dorm on - they are only renting Casa Verde. If the building permit comes through, we may break ground this summer!

Unbelievable

I'm in Mexico, hanging out with a lot of southerners. They say things like "up north in Arkansas." They talk about sweet tea. Apparently Milo's sweet tea has no equal. And I learned what grocery store feet are. This is different from Wheaton and NJ for that matter.

In honor of Mexican cock roaches

As Owen Barfield once said to me, "The trouble about insects is that they are like French locomotives - they have all the works on the outside." The works - that is the trouble. Their angular limbs, their jerky movements, their dry, metalic noises, all suggest either machines that have come to life or life degenerating into mechanism.
Surprised By Joy, C.S. Lewis


Sweet dreams.

But today. . .

. . . the music running through my head was one line from "I'm a New Soul" (sung on the mac commercial) - "finding myself making every possible mistake."

I overslept for ten minutes while my alarm rang (I can barely hear it over the fan), poured Simple Green instead of Clorox into the sink, stuck the timer in my apron pocket so the "stop" button was pushed and the cake overcooked, and absent-mindedly dropped a measuring cup and spatula into the trash instead of the sink. I'm pretty sure there were some other things, but I don't remember what they were. I'm also chronically misplacing my nalgene, sometimes with my keys attached to it.

I haven't quite got the hang of Mondays yet.