3-10

Tomorrow will be 3 weeks since I’ve been here. I really can’t believe it. I’m sure that lots of stuff has been going on since I’ve left. I can’t wait hear about it . I forgot to tell you that the Sisters offered for me to go to Mexico City! They want me to go with Abram, he’s one of the older kids here. I think he’s 19. I think they told me that he’s going to compete in some Gymnastics tournament. That’s pretty cool. Anyway I’m really excited to be going. Mexico City is one of the biggest cities in the world. Probably twice the size of New York City. The sister told me that I should go to the Basilica of Guadalupe, that’s definitely something I’ll have to go visit. I hear its amazing! I’ll be there for 4 days. I don’t know exactly what I’ll be able to do. I’m going to be staying at a friend of one of the sisters. I’m not sure if me and Abram will be at the same house, I hope so, it’ll be weird not knowing any one at the house and not knowing much Spanish will make it harder. But if so, it’ll be ok. The bus ride there is going to be crazy long, like 10 hours, we leave in the night so hopefully I’ll be able to sleep on the way. I’ll be there from the 19^th-23^rd. Angelle is do you have any good recommendations for what to do in Mexico City?

Today Sarah, a girl who grew up in the Casa and now lives on her own, asked me if I wanted to go to a disco this Saturday. Which I’m guessing is a dance club. I’m not big into that sort of thing, but I think it’ll be a cool experience to see how that kind of environment is in another country.

I’ve haven’t be able to go to as many daily Masses as I would like. I really need to make time for it in my day. A cool thing that I do do daily is get up and pray with the kids in the church. I don’t think there is a better way to start you day than to pray in front of Jesus in the chapel . I’m still working on my prayers in Spanish also. 

3-8

I can’t believe I haven’t written anything in 4 days. Anyways I’ve been staying pretty busy a lot of the time. Bringing the kids to school, constantly brushing up on my Spanish, helping cook meals, and allowing my self time to play games with the children in-between. None of it has become monotonous yet. I’m really having a great time. I won’t lie at times the noise gets a bit much. The other day I got a pretty bad headache from all the yelling and crying. The sisters here are so awesome. They offered me everything to make sure I got better. An Advil did the trick.

I try to set aside a little bit of time each day to practice my Spanish. I think I’m getting better every day. I’m pretty sure I’m comprehending more and more. The pronunciation is still kicking me in the butt though. Usually if I don’t pronounce a word precisely correct the kids won’t know what I’m trying to say. So I look it up in a dictionary and they say:

“Oh, (insert word here)!”

“That’s what I said”

haha

Today was awesome! I was able to go with the sisters to Guadalajara. There was this get together of all the convents of Our Lady of Sorrows in Mexico. It was pretty cool. We went to Mass with all the sisters and a lot of the families came too. Mass was beautiful. They didn’t have the biggest Chapel at there convent, not nearly as big as the one in Tepa. This was the first Mass that I’ve been to in Mexico that they gave the Blood with the Body. Which was cool!

After Mass there was the big meal where there was all kinds of great food and Deserts. I had some really awesome ice cream called Guabana. I was able to meet lots of new people. All of them assuring me that I’m coming along with my Spanish very well. Haha. I don’t know if they were just being nice . A cool thing was that I was able to understand a lot of what people were talking to me about. I met this really cool Postulant, Maricela, she very sociable and was talking to everyone there. She reminded me of a certain some one(*cough* Angelle *cough*) . Oh by the way Angelle she wanted to tell me that she’s sad that you didn’t write any letters for me to bring to her. She told me that she says Hi to you, Brooke and Taylor. Send me a message if you want me to tell her anything back. She’s really funny. She asked if I would want to go with Roberto and Jorge to Tepalpa during their vacation. I think I saw some pictures of the town on your blog. If that’s the place it’s beautiful.

After the lunch there was this really cool information session thing. I didn’t understand everything but I caught bits a pieces. Basically a sister would get up and talk about where she was from and where she worked at. Their were sisters that worked in Brazil, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, United States, and Mexico. It was so awesome to see how worldly their order is. Very beautiful and made me feel so good about our Church!

Before I left I was talking to and young little girl. I think she said she was 10. She asked me if I spoke English. She seemed really fascinated about that. But other than that something really beautiful she talked about. I asked what she wanted to do when she grew up. She said she wanted to be Sister. That really touched me. So beautiful. This girl looked up to the sisters around her and they inspired her. That’s so awesome! Being here in Tepa and being involved with the sisters has really given me a new found respect for them. They way of life is so beautiful and humbling. I get nothing but a great since of joy in there lives.

Welp I think this is a plethora of stuff for now  Talk to you soon!

3-4

Well today marks 2 weeks of me being here  It surly doesn’t seem to be that long. But on the same token I do feel as if I’ve started to make this my home. There is a really great feeling living here. It’s just so very welcoming. One of the kids was asking me the other day if I would come back next year. I was really touched that they’re already wanting to know if I’ll come back. I definitely plan on coming back, unfortunately not as long as this time. So I have to really cherish all the time that I’m spending here. To anyone who may be reading this blog, I highly recommend spending some time in a Casa Hogar. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in here in Tepa, though Tepa is a beautiful place. There are these types of communities all over the world. Mexico alone has several. It’s indescribable the impact it has on you. As crazy as it sounds I think whenever I have a vacations from a job I get in the future, I want to come here and places like it.

3-3

Men sitting under vibrant translucent tree playing checkers with two different color sets of bottle caps that are placed upside down on the fabric table. There’s a huge dog that I once thought of as stuffed perched on a roof top. Many women stand outside of there homes and pour buckets of thick sudsy water on top of the concrete in front of the homes. Only to keep their part of the neighborhood clean. I pass some of the most elaborately designed trees. Squares, spirals, and various articulated shapes. It makes you wonder if Edward Scissor Hands roamed though here on a previous occasion. There is the fresh smell of spices being cooked on the corner of a street that are being prepare for it’s customers. While locals sit on the side of the stand and eat their meals. It’s hard so describe it. It’s kind of like the way you would think of a New York hotdog stand but without the calories of a greasy hotdog. A truck zooms by echoing “Aqua Aqua” distributing purified water to different homes and businesses. I pass by A wall painting that says “Vida Si, Aborto No”. There are little kids hand prints placed all around it in many different hue’s. I think to my self, if only all Graffiti could be this uplifting. This sort of thing couldn’t be real, could it? It just seems to be taken from the pages of some fictitious novel.

I just wanted to write this short little piece to tell you how surreal it feels to be living here. The way of life here is so simple and yet so beautiful.

2-28

I got to play ping pong today for the first time  I knew they had a table and told some of the kids that a really like to play. But when we attempted to we couldn’t find the paddles or balls anywhere. Sister Claudia was cool enough to go buy some paddles from a local shop in the plaza. The funny thing is that as soon as she got back from the tienda they had found the other paddles. So now we have a crazy over abundance of ping pong paddles. We’ll just have to use them for other things I guess, any suggestions? Haha. I played ping pong with Pepe and then Ani. Ani is a awesome ping pong player. She beat me the first couple of times.

I also went to the store today to get a watch. I really wanted to get one so I could keep track of the time when I had to go bring the kids to school and also to pick them. I was using my Ipod, but I found out that it isn’t the greatest means of a watch. Usually when I would take it out to check the time the kids would want me to play a song of show them a video or something .

The Sisters are so nice to me over here. I think they are trying their hardest to make me feel at home. It’s really humbling to me. They’re always asking me if I would like something else to eat, which I never do say I want, or I try to tell them that, but I think that gets lost in translation some where. I’m perfectly happy with whatever they are eating. But for tonight they went get taco’s from a restaurant. It wasn’t just for me but also for the sisters. The taco’s were really amazing. I only just feel bad that I’m not eating the same stuff as the kids. I usually try to eat with all the children in the cafeteria, but it the Sisters invite me to eat with them I’ll always accept it. Hey Angelle did you ever have this kind of thing happen with you when you were here? If so what did you do?

Something I really love about eating with the kids is that they always yell for me to come sit with them when I go eat in the cafeteria. I try to sit at a different table each time I go.

I had a really great conversation with Sister Carmin tonight. She’s really hilarious, which is crazy to me because she speaks pretty much Zero English. Tonight I was talking to her about how she likes being in Tepa and things of that nature. She’s been here for 8 years, she said that it’s tiring. There are 80 something kids here, and it can range up into 120. That’s a really crazy. When you’re at the Casa you wouldn’t think it’s that many because there usually always spread out all over or working or doing something. Me and Sor Carmin also talked about our difficulties with English and Spanish. I just kept telling her “ Espanole es Muy Deficile!” and she would reply “No No English”. I said “Mojer, Mujer, and Mojado”. Haha! One means Wet, one Woman, and the other Better. I think I only have one friend that can easily identify these. They may seem to look very different, but when you pronounce them in Spanish they are almost the exactly the same.

I hope I’m not carrying on to much about non-sense on here 

2-26

I’m still not sick! Hooray! Haha. I was expecting my body to react to something but I’ve been doing the great the entire time I’ve been here. The most sickness that I’ve had thus far is probably from the turbulence on the plane ride here. I say this now and watch I’ll wind up getting sick tomorrow or something, heh. But I really feel great and I do like most of the food that is severed here. There are some things that I would rather not eat but it’s cool, I eat it anyway. I have had a few hamburgers here and they were both really great! It’s seems that every one here wants to eat hamburgers from America but I really don’t see why. The one’s here are way better in my opinion. I still am on this “Super Loco Burger” that Angelle told me about. Everyone I ask don’t know where you can get it.

I was able to go with Jessica and (I feel so bad that I can’t remember here name. it’s a hard name to remember) to her Dance practice. It was fun to see. I did feel a bit odd though, 1 being the only guy there and 2 knowing no Spanish. It was cool to see they were doing all kinds of cool Jazz dances. And I also meet one of there friends that spoke perfect English. She said that she lived in LA, California for 5 years and goes back every summer. So that was cool.

Art class was fun today. I had to come up with something on the spot so I asked 3 of the kids for there shoes and then assembled them in to a somewhat interesting assortment. I haven’t see the finished results yet because I left early to go to watch the dance thing. But I’m really excited to see it. Look at my pictures, I have some pictures of there last paintings they came out really nice.

Tonight I had a really great conversation with one of the older girls of the Casa. She’s really cool. It was cool to kind of have a some what understandable conversation with my very little Espanole. We were just talking about movies and music, stuff like that. I did object when she said she liked Nicolas Cage as and actor. Haha. All I said was “Malo Malo Actoro”. She said that she want to go into acting when she goes to a university, which is next year. Very cool.

Oh if any of you guys want to send me some art supplies and things like that it would be cool. There isn’t the greatest variety of things here. I’m looking for vine charcoal, compressed charcoal, pink pearl erasers, art pencils(2B,4B), and cheep acrylic paint. I know the it might be hard to find cheep acrylic paint so if you see some and it’s really expensive don’t get it. Oh also it would be cool to get some decent paint brushes I know you can buy packs of them at Walmart for like 5 or 6 dollars. Well I think that’s a lot to ask for and I definitely don’t expect you to buy stuff just letting you know I would appreciate it  I want to get some better materials for the art classes. The kids are doing so great I would love for them to get some of the proper tools. Oh if you do send some of this to me try not to send it in to big of a package, try to flatten it as much as possible.

Well that about all I have to say for now. I’ve been getting tired early lately. I think it has to do with how buy my days usually are. But it keeps them fun and intresting!

2-25

I sit here as I end the final day of my first week in Mexico. There are a lot of different emotions that are going through me right now. I’m definitely starting to long for a familiarness in my day to day culture. It’s just hard to describe the feeling, and it really only hit me recently. Don’t get me wrong I completely love Mexico. It’s just hard to not understand what’s going on most of the time. I am starting to understand bits and pieces of conversations. And when the sisters or kids Laugh I laugh to, mostly because I think laughing in contagious no matter what. But I still don’t understand, and that’s something that I miss so much. I talked to my close friend and Godfather Matt today. I think I must of talked his ear off, but it was so nice to hear someone respond to you and understand what your saying. He had the unfortunate news of telling me that a friend of ours from Wisdom had passed away. I’m so sorry to hear this and I really wish her family all of my condolences. I’ll be continually praying for her family and her soul. She was a great person and will be very missed.