mexico---fast forward to now

so thanksgiving just past, and december is almost here, which means it’s been about 3 months since we first arrived here in penasco.  my goal was to keep a daily journal of all our adventures, but since that didn’t work out, i am summarizing the past few months into a very condensed version (well, i consider it condensed).  so lets see…

…after the first week of living in fear, confusion and anxiety, we really began to adapt to our new home.  we met friends, who speak English!  of course, they are Americans and all over the age of 49, but without them, i don’t know if we’d still be here.  they welcomed us, encouraged us and fed us (many times!).  tab (a pastor at a church down here) and his wife ellen have taken the duty of being our Mexican parents, and what a difference they’ve truly made.  they helped us get connected with many other people and organizations in town (family of god church, the larry large foundation, good news club, vida joven…aka young life,  the local food bank, penasco fellowship…) 

…with the good news club we helped feed over 200 people one Saturday afternoon, most of them being children.  the children listened to bible stories and sang songs and then eagerly waited in line for a hot dog and some cookies.  there were about 35 moms there who also waited in line for a bag of food filled with rice, beans and macaroni.  it’s pretty crazy seeing several girls between the ages of 14-18 waiting in the “mom line”.  you look at their young innocent looking faces, and then to the precious child in their arms and you know they’ve already experienced way too much life. 

…dustin got to speak to a youth group (penasco fellowship) on one of our first Saturday night’s here.  speaking in a different language to a group of teenagers who’ve grown up in a completely different culture is quite a challenge, but he did a great job.  the translator helped quite a bit too.  and tomorrow he is preaching in “big” church at family of god, twice!  i’m pretty excited for him.

…with a different church (family of god) we helped with a neighborhood water day.  water day is a day of lots of hair cutting, a giant slip-n-slide, shampoo, and hundreds of dogs.  we went to the barrios (the poorer areas of town where the streets are all dirt and the houses are made out of scraps of whatever).  once there we offered free hair cuts while another church

in town did skits, singing, and puppet shows for the kids.  i’ve only cut dustin’s hair before, but apparently that qualified me to be a hair cutter for the day.  i lost track of how many little boys i gave hair cuts to, but by the end my hand was tingling all over from holding the clippers for so long.

the little boys were so cute!  i now want one (hehe).  then, dozens of kids played on the giant slip-n-slide.  we had shampoo available, which the kids loved, so it kind of turned into a great big shower. 

…with the larry large foundation we helped deliver baby baskets to the new moms at the hospital.  there are about 80 new babies born every month, which is about 5 babies a day.  now that may not sound like that many, but the town is only about 45000 people.  either way, there’s lots of babies around.  so we went into the hospital and went and got baby baskets for 3 new moms.  when we entered the hospital room we realized that the sick are kept in the same room as the new moms and their brand new babies.  there are about 5 beds in each room, and all the beds were full.  the babies were perfect, beautiful babies.  almost all deliveries are done by c-section because there are not enough doctors.  so they have to schedule all the births in order to be able to help everyone.  and then the moms are usually sent home within 24 hours, and many are sent back to a little shack with a dirt floor and no power.  but the babies obviously adapt to the tough lifestyle very quickly. 

…we’ve met several families in our short time here, and we’re constantly meeting more people in need.  so far we’ve been able to build 4 houses.  2 in October and 2 in November.  

in October christ’s church of the valley came out and built houses for two great families.  it was fun having ccv here because we got to see some friends too.  a few people from ccv came in November and built another house for a family of 5, one being a 1 ½ month old little baby.  gold canyon

 church, from apache junction also came down in November and built a double wide for a family of 8.  7 kids in this family! the groups that have come down have been so very generous and worked so hard to give these families a fresh start.  the families from October have already put more work into their houses, taking pride in their new house and really making it their home.  the list of families needing houses is continuously growing.  i want to help all of them, right now…  weekends when groups are here are always fun.  on the last night we do a fiesta and invite all the families we’ve helped out for dinner.  it gives the volunteers a chance to see and get to know all the families we’ve helped and the families can get to know one another as well.  we have some local people come out and make carne asada and the band from young life plays music.  it’s just a really neat time for the Mexicans and Americans to hang out together. 

...we've also had a little bit of time to have fun down here.  the beach is only about 10 minutes away, and taking a stroll down it in the evenings definitely helps us to relax after a hard days work.  and we love the cheap tacos that we can eat while sitting in old port looking out at the water.  the sun is always out, the days are warm and the sunset’s are beautiful!  it’s my kind of place here.  and we’ve had visitors too!  joe and nicole and the girls came down for a fun day at the beach, and to see us 

course.  i loved having them here and i had so much fun playing with the girls in the water.  then, just a few days later my mom and jim came down.  what a great week!  we did more hanging out on the beach and enjoyed a lot of good Mexican food. 

…that’s the gist of what’s been going on down here.  we use to have a pack of wild dogs that tormented us every night, but they’re not too bad anymore.  i’ve found a tarantula, a scorpion about the size of my hand, and a rattlesnake about an inch from my foot.  other than those little encounters, and one tiny run-in with the police,  it’s been a great adventure so far.   

negative tide

today we went to cholla bay for negative tide.  negative tide is when the tide is so low that it’s considered negative.  so you can walk out to where you would ordinarily be 25-30 feet below water.  which means you can find tons of sea creatures all over the place.  right as we got to cholla bay this lady stopped and talked to us because she saw our kansas license plate, and told us she was from johnson county, kansas.  small world!  they were going clamming, which meant they were going to dig around and collect clams for dinner.  i don’t like clams, but if i did i think it would be neat to “catch” your own dinner.  but we were there to explore.  we walked out almost a mile before we really found anything exciting.  we had finally reached our first sand dollar bed.  giant whole sand dollars just below the surface of the water.  oh, but first i glanced over and saw something bright colored covered in sand.  it was a starfish!  then i found 2 sand dollars.  i was also looking for pretty shells.  and there were lots of big whole shells all over.  i found this one that i think was a clam.  the outside was jagged and it wasn’t very pretty, but it was a whole shell with something living inside.  since i don’t really like clams, and it wasn’t very pretty, i threw it back.  but then i found this shinny striped shell that was open, but both sides were still intact.  in the bag it went.  then i found a shell that looked the exact same as my stripped one, except it was closed.  i held it for a second and it was like the shell was breathing.  crazy. so i thought maybe a piece of sand slipped in and maybe there was a pearl! so i put it in my bag too.  then i run over to dustin and ellen and see what they’re staring at.  it was a sea horse!  unbelievable.  dustin didn’t even think they really existed.  he said “i  thought sea horses were like unicorns…”  nope, not true, because we saw a live one just swimming around.  then i go to check in my bag to make sure nothing has broken and i look and see the two identical shells, both open!  there is a clam crawling around somewhere in my bag!  and then i saw it.  this slimmy blob stuck to my water bottle.  but then i noticed it had eyes.  i don’t know a lot about clams, but i did not picture them like this.  as i scoop it back into it’s shell i realize it is a baby OCTOPUS!  he was just hanging out in my bag.  i accidentally dropped him in the water and he inked and started swimming away.  i couldn’t let him get away before getting a picture, so i scooped him up and he sucked onto my hand.  in a way, he was kinda cute.  but he was also slimmy and disgusting.  i wasn’t sure how long they could live out of water, so i dipped him back in so he could “breathe”.  bad move.  because when i took my hand out of the water he suctioned on my hand so hard it felt like needles all over.  so i shook him off and then dropped his shell near him so he could crawl back in.   it was crazy.  apparently these little octopus’ hang out in these shells when they’re babies because i found another identical shell with one inside.  with all of our exciting discoveries we kinda felt like we we’re on the discovery channel, but it was just another day in penasco.  

why we're here

so it's been about a week now that we've been here (in rocky point).  it's such a different life down here.  so many people living with so little and who are in such great need.  i was a little surprised at how much criticism we got about coming down here to help.  people told us that there are tons of people in the united states that need help, so why would we go down to help people mexico.  that's a good question... we just met a family down here a few days ago, and their story is unbelievable.  what they've gone through, what's been done to them just breaks my heart and brings me to tears.  the family consisted of a mom, dad and four children.  the parents were both killed in a car accident, leaving the children to take care of themselves.  the oldest sister was 20, the oldest brother 16, and the two younger brothers were 8 and 3.  the oldest brother had made it to new york and was working as bus boy in a restaurant.  he was doing very well making money for his family, but his sister, who was left with the younger boys was getting really depressed and even suicidal.  so he left new york to go back to his family.  he and his sister worked hard to save up their money so they could all move to the states.  $5,000 is what they had saved up to pay the "coyotes" to get them across the border.  after giving these "coyotes" their money, they (the "coyotes") kidnapped the youngest brother, who at the time was just a little toddler, and knocked out the sisters teeth.  they demanded the rest of their money, and after getting it, left the four young, innocent children stranded in the middle of the desert.  they were completely helpless, and cast aside as if their life was of no value.  how anyone can look at the sweet faces of these children, beat them, take all they have, and then leave them to die in the desert is beyond me.   they went 3 days without food or water before they reached the main highway that leads from the border into rocky point.  and thankfully, by the grace of god, these caring tourists stopped to pick them up.  they then spent the next couple months living out of their car and selling little souvenirs on the streets of rocky point.  clearly these children had to grow up way too fast.  their story ends well, and better than most here in mexico.  the two younger boys are going to school and helping out at the families little gift shop, the oldest sister helps manage a cleaning service, and they're living in a safe little apartment in town.  though i've known them only a few days, i already consider them my friends, and i care for them deeply.  this is only one story of one family here in puerto penasco.  sadly i know there are many more.  and yes, it's true, there are people here just waiting for a hand out, but it's also just as true that there are many who are doing all they can to survive and still desperately needing help.  we are here for those people.

 

 

the beginning of my life in mexico

so it's been about a day...still getting things unpacked and cleaned.  we went to dinner in town last night and i got to see the ocean and a beautiful sunset.  seeing that gives me a little more peace about being here.  and this morning we met a pastor and his wife who are from phoenix but have been here for four years.  they're a little bit older, probably in their 40's or 50's but they seem really friendly.  we're meeting them at a birthday party at burger king for one of the kids who goes to their church.  hopefully we'll be able to meet some more people there.  i felt a lot better after meeting them.  it's such a new and different place, so i still feel a little anxious.  and i've definitely been accident prone since we've gotten here.  last night after i took my shower that was maybe look warm and felt more like a little hose dribbling on me than a shower, i took my flip flops off on this little tile ledge.  it's like a little step at the edge of the shower about 8 inches off the ground.  well i look down and say to myself "we should definitely get a rug to put there because it looks like it could be pretty slippery...i'll make a list of little things like that that they can bring for us when the group comes down..."  as i'm thinking that last thought i slowly try to step down and as soon as my foot hits the tile my feet fly up and my back hits that wonderful tile ledge.  dustin and jason heard my scream as i slipped and dustin ran in to check on me.  i couldn't breathe at first because it really knocked the wind out of me, so all i could do was cry.  thankfully i was able to get up and breathe and finish getting ready for bed.  it's a little sore today, but it could've been way worse.  then today i'm washing some dishes and zeebs (my dog) brings her ball over to me and drops it at my feet.  i pick it up and throw it for her and watch her slide around on the tile.  so i'm just washing this mug and watching her, but then the mug slips out of my hand and i try to catch it before it hits the water and the other mugs, but apparently i wasn't quick enough because i pull my hand out of the water and my pinky is covered in blood.  so i rinse it in the sink for a while and it just bleeds away.  i lightly rubbed over it with my finger and it didn't feel like there was any glass in there, just a nasty cut, so i find a rag and wrap that around my finger and hold it up above my head for a while.  my finger is throbbing and i'm feeling a little light headed as i search for the bandaids and neosporen.  i find them and let my finger bleed for a little longer before i wipe it clean with an alcohol pad.  i glob some neospern on there and then put the bandaid around.  except the bandaid won't stay on so i have to tape it on with medical tape.  once i finished with all that i had to lay down for a while.  so now i have this taped up pinky that i can't even type with, and a sore back.  but i guess it could be a lot worse...   apparently i'm just more clumsy in mexico.