Settling In

Wow, it has been awhile, yes? For those of you who don't know, I'm now in Porvenir, Mexico, living here for the next five months or so.

I arrived last Monday and have been settling in over the past week. The girls get a house to ourselves, a double wide trailer strait from the 70's. It's actually very nice, three rooms, two full bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, and a few random storage closets. I'm in the largest bedroom with three other girls, and I've enjoyed nesting into my area.

We spent Wednesday through Friday in Tijuana. We stayed in a place called El Castillo, a pretty awesome but rather drafty stone building right in the midst of the city. We took classes on all the different languages (body language, tone, smell, space, etc.) and some particular ways Mexicans communicate within these areas. Then we were kind of let loose in pairs to wander the city and observe said behaviors. It was a little intimidating at first, but we were all safe and learned a lot. For example, if you want to say thank you to a fellow driver in Mexico, you hold up your hand to them with the back of your hand facing them, and this comes from when people would tip their hats to one another. Also, there is a distinct difference between how you indicate the height of a thing, animal, or person, and each way you gesture differently. I tried fried cactus for the first time and took a taxi.

We also went to an upper middle class mall one night. It looked exactly like something I would have seen in California, except everyone was dressed nicer. It is the norm in Mexico to dress up every time you leave the house, and people tend to dress nicer than they can afford. It was a different side of Mexico than the impoverished villages I had seen on previous mission trips.

Saturday night we went to La Confra, a youth conference in Ensenada. Everyone was dressed to impress (kind of like a lot of youth and college groups in the US, right?). The worship was by far my favorite part of the evening. I was framiliar with a few of the songs' English translations, but even the ones I didn't know were powerful and moving. The speaker was over my head most of the time, but I could tell that he was straight to the point and passionate. By the end of the night there were about twenty kids who went to the front to accept Christ. It was awesome to not understand exactly what was going on but to still feel God moving.

Earlier today we spent about an hour at Casa de Gabriel, an orphanage for handicapped and HIV positive children. It's always been a challenging place for me (I've visited Casa de Gabriel in previous spring break trips). The kids are all adorable and beautiful and amazing, but it's hard not to dwell on their circumstances and be sad. We spoke with the lady who runs the orphanage today and she gave us a better perspective on things. She told us about the kids' prior circumstances, some had lived in cages, some where tied to chairs all the time without food or water, some were left to wander around on their own...Casa de Gabriel is a huge blessing for all the kids who get to go there. I guess the ones I should really be sad for is the children who are still living in horrible situations.

We also go shopping every two weeks for our own breakfasts and lunches for each house. So the girls got together and tried to make a plan...it was not quite chaotic but it was difficult and tiring and frustrating. Everyone had preferences and opinions and no one knew exactly what would work for eight of us for two weeks. So today we went to Costco with a faint plan in mind...I think we got enough of the right foods to survive for two weeks, but will definitly be a trial and error kind of week. But all in all, a good and necessary experience.

It has been nice not having internet or phones in Porvenir. We are all more likely to hang out with God and each other, and I've been having a good time getting into a few good books (including the Bible). I could definitly use prayer for patience with myself, feeling like it is okay to mess up and stumble over my Spanish, and not being too proud or embarrased to try and connect with the locals.

Right now I'm sitting in a McDonalds getting my internet-slash-cheeseburger fix. Authentic, I know. I guess I will have to make up for it by eating delicious local tacos tonight. Sigh. Such is life.